Visa Rule Changes — April 2025Spring 2025 Updates to Visa’s Fee Schedule

Visa Rules & Fees Change Often. Here’s the Scoop on the Latest Update.

Visa typically updates their interchange fees and network fees twice per year (once in April and again in October). Fees may fluctuate depending on market conditions, operating costs, fraud risks, regulatory changes, and other factors.

Visa’s most recent set of changes, effective April 1, 2025, are designed to encourage faster dispute resolution among US and Canadian merchants.

What’s Happening?

Visa are making several changes to their complex fee schedule. Beginning on April 1, 2025, Visa is implementing a tiered fee model for both dispute acceptance fees — which are assessed when you accept the outcome of a chargeback claim — as well as dispute response fees, which are charged when you decide to re-present a chargeback.

This tiered model affects both US and Canadian merchants. It rewards sellers who react quickly to disputes and punishes those who delay their acceptance or response times.

Aside from this new approach, Visa will make fee changes to transactions involving its Custom Payment Service (CPS), Business, Corporate, and Purchasing programs.

We can explain all the key changes in more detail by breaking them down into specific sections:

• 1. Tiered Dispute Acceptance & Response Fees in the US
• 2. Tiered Dispute Acceptance & Response Fees in Canada
• 3. Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP)
• 4. Updates to CPS Programs for Unattended Terminals

Tiered Dispute Acceptance & Response Fees in the US

Visa already had a tiered fee structure for acceptance and response fees prior to April 2025. However, that fee structure was more generous; it gave merchants more time to accept or reject a chargeback without incurring fees. This new fee structure reduces the amount of time sellers have to respond if they wish to avoid a penalty.

In short, Visa is changing the previously three-tiered fee structure to a five-tier structure. Under the old structure, merchants could take up to 20 days to accept disputes without incurring a fee; this new structure shortens the grace period to just 10 days.

If a merchant does not act after 30 days, the Visa dispute expires. The card network previously assessed a $1.00 dispute expired fee. This charge has since escalated to $7.00:

Changes to Dispute Acceptance Fees for US Merchants

Days After Chargeback is Filed	Prior to April 1, 2025	As of April 1, 2025
Within 10 Days	$0.00	$0.00
11–15 Days	$0.00	$0.50
16–20 Days	$0.00	$1.00
21–25 Days	$0.50	$2.00
26–30 Days	$0.75	$3.00
Dispute Expired	$1.00	$7.00

There are new fees applied for submitting a dispute response as well. While the individual charges are nominal, they can add up over time.

Something else to note is that, while merchants formerly incurred no fees if they failed to respond to pre-arbitration messages on time, they can now expect a hefty $15 dispute expired fee for responses not filed within 30 days. Merchants can’t simply let a dispute expire. They need to submit a timely response — even if the response is only to affirm that they do not want to challenge the dispute claim — to avoid the fee:

Changes to Dispute Response Fees for US Merchants

Days After Chargeback is Filed	Prior to April 1, 2025	As of April 1, 2025
Within 10 Days	$1.05	$1.05
11–15 Days	$1.05	$1.50
16–20 Days	$1.05	$2.00
21–25 Days	$1.75	$3.00
26–30 Days	$2.15	$4.00
Dispute Expired (Pre-Arb)	$0.00	$15.00

This new tiered-fee structure can make fighting a Visa chargeback more expensive. The fee for representments filed within 10 days remains the same at $1.05, but merchants who respond after 11 days can expect higher fees, which escalate as the response time window increases. The aim here is to incentivize merchants and acquirers to respond to and resolve disputes as quickly as possible.

Tiered Dispute Acceptance & Response Fees in Canada

For Canadian merchants, there’s an opposite effect.

Prior to April 1, 2025, all disputes incurred fees, no matter how quickly a merchant responded. The new, more granular fee structure creates a small window of time where merchants can respond without worrying about getting hit with a fee. It helps level the playing field and makes the Canadian dispute fee structure more similar to the US one.

Changes to Dispute Acceptance Fees for Canadian Merchants

Days After Chargeback is Filed	Prior to April 1, 2025	As of April 1, 2025
Within 10 Days	$1.50	$0.00
11–15 Days	$1.50	$0.50
16–20 Days	$1.50	$1.00
21–25 Days	$2.50	$2.00
26–30 Days	$3.50	$3.00
Dispute Expired	$4.50	$7.00

By tweaking its dispute acceptance fee structure for Canadian merchants, Visa now charges US and Canadian merchants the exact same fees for accepting disputes.

What’s interesting is that, like I alluded to above, these changes result in lower fees across the board for Canadian merchants. For example, Canadian sellers who accept chargebacks within 10 days now incur no fees, down from $1.50 previously. Similarly, fees for accepting disputes within 26–30 days have declined from $3.50 to $3.00.

The only fee that’s really going up is the dispute expired fee, which rose from $4.50 to $7.00.

Changes to Dispute Response Fees for Canadian Merchants

The story differs quite a bit when we look at new fees being assessed for dispute responses in the Canadian market, though:

Days After Chargeback is Filed	Prior to April 1, 2025	As of April 1, 2025
Within 10 Days	$1.05	$1.05
11–15 Days	$1.05	$1.50
16–20 Days	$1.05	$2.00
21–25 Days	$1.75	$3.00
26–30 Days	$2.15	$4.00
Dispute Expired (Pre-Arb)	$0.00	$15.00

If these changes look familiar, that’s because they are: Visa is applying the exact same changes to its fee structure for Canadian merchants regarding dispute responses as it is for US merchants.

Again, the aim is to incentivize merchants to submit timely responses to all dispute claims. This means higher fees across the board, along with a new $15.00 dispute expired fee.

Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP)

Visa is also rebranding and updating its interchange fee programs for certain Visa Business, Corporate, and Purchasing credit transactions. These will all be under a new umbrella called the Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP). Here’s what’s included:

Current Fee Program Descriptor	New Fee Program Descriptor
VS Business Level 2 Tier 1	N/A
VS Business Level 2 Tier 2	N/A
VS Business Level 2 Tier 3	N/A
VS Business Level 2 Tier 4	N/A
VS Business Level 2 Tier 5	N/A
VS Corp Non Travel Level 2	N/A
VS Purchasing Non Travel Level 2	N/A
VS Commercial Fuel Level 3 Data	VS Commercial CR Fuel Product 3
VS US Corp Non Travel Level 3	VS Corp CR Product 3
VS Purchasing Non Travel Level 3	VS Purchasing CR Product 3
VS US Commercial Product Large Ticket	VS Commercial Large Ticket CR

Beginning April 1, 2025, Visa is introducing a 0.05% card brand fee for all CEDP transactions.

Updates to CPS Programs for Unattended Terminals

Visa is expanding the eligibility criteria for certain Custom Payment Service (CPS) programs to include transactions made through unattended cardholder-activated terminals. This means transactions from kiosks, vending machines, and similar terminals may now qualify for interchange rates under programs like:

• CPS/Retail
• CPS/Retail Incremental Authorizations
• CPS/Restaurant
• CPS/Supermarket
• CPS/Retail Service Station
• CPS/Hotel (card present)
• CPS/Car Rental (card present)
• CPS/Passenger Transport (card present)
• CPS/Retail Key Entry

Visa's CPS program helps merchants qualify for lower interchange rates by adhering to specific transaction data criteria and processing standards. These standards are designed to improve risk management; as such, they could help sellers potentially avoid disputes (and the resulting fees).

Why Are These Changes Happening?

Visa’s April 2025 fee adjustments are aimed at enhancing network efficiency and mitigating risk. For merchants, this manifests as new dispute fees that are designed to compel faster dispute resolution.

By implementing a more stringent five-tiered model in the US, Visa can effectively penalize delays and escalate costs for protracted responses. In short, Visa’s new changes will benefit merchants who respond quickly to dispute messages. On the flip side, the card network’s new fee-free windows in Canada now aligns its fee structure more closely with the US and creates cross-border consistency.

Dispute fees aside, updates to the Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) and Custom Payment Service (CPS) eligibility signify efforts to streamline commercial pricing and expand access to potentially lower rates for transactions completed via increasingly popular card-present checkout methods.

Implications for Merchants

For merchants operating in the US and Canada, arguably the most important takeaway from Visa’s latest fee adjustments is the importance of swift and decisive dispute management. That’s because these new fee structures do away with the generous grace periods of the past, and more harshly penalize merchants who delay.

Canadian merchants, meanwhile, have a new opportunity to save on costs. Sellers who accept or respond to a dispute within 10 days can now exempt themselves from some (or all) of the penalty previously assessed.

Still, Visa’s focus on rapid resolution, regardless of the market, is unmistakable. The introduction of a dispute expired fee and the increased arbitration fee strongly incentivizes merchants to respond to all disputes, regardless of whether the intent is to accept, or to challenge the dispute.

Beyond dispute fees, Visa’s new card brand fee for Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP) transactions, its expansion of Custom Payment Service (CPS) eligibility to transactions conducted using unattended terminals like kiosks and vending machines could lead to modest cost savings for merchants in certain geographies.

Visa’s new dispute fee structure raises the stakes for merchants who receive chargebacks. Unless you practice proactive chargeback management and respond to disputes quickly, you could face rapidly escalating financial consequences.

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