Qualified Rate

In the world of credit card payments, qualified processing rates are the merchant fees that a retailer pays for a specific type of credit card processing. This is all based on what is called “tiered” pricing. “Qualified” is the best (lowest) rate, but there are also mid-qualified and non-qualified rates.

Rates can be dependent on multiple factors, including a merchant’s transaction volume. Generally speaking, however, transactions using a physical card terminal are more likely to be qualified, as opposed to keying in an entry with or without additional verification.

Processing providers determine their own qualification rates. As you might suspect, providers’ advertising usually tout the lowest rates, but many transactions will not qualify for those. That means processing could end up costing a lot more than the merchant was expecting – especially since the rates can also be changed with no warning.