How interchange works
On a card payment, the money moves from the issuer to the acquirer through the card scheme, and from the acquirer to the merchant. On the way, the acquirer pays the issuer a fee: interchange. The scheme sets default rates, which apply where an issuer and an acquirer have not agreed their own (Mastercard Rules, 8.3).
For an issuer, interchange is income on each payment its cards make. For a merchant, it is one part of the charge its acquirer bills. The EU regulation counts any payment, rebate or incentive with the same effect as part of the fee (Article 5).
The EU and UK caps on interchange
The EU caps have applied since 9 December 2015, and the regulation has not been amended since.
- EU, consumer debit and prepaid cards: 0.2% of the payment (Article 3).
- EU, consumer credit cards: 0.3% (Article 4). A member state may set a lower cap for domestic payments.
- Covered: payments where the issuer and the acquirer are both in the EU (Article 1).
- Not capped: commercial cards, cash withdrawals, and cards of three-party schemes that issue and acquire themselves.
- UK: the retained regulation keeps 0.2% and 0.3% for payments where the issuer and the acquirer are both in the UK.
Payments between the UK and the EU
Since the UK left the EU, a payment with a card issued on one side to a merchant on the other falls under neither cap. The UK's Payment Systems Regulator reports that Visa and Mastercard raised interchange on online UK-EEA consumer payments from 0.2% and 0.3% to 1.15% and 1.5%.
The regulator found a lack of competition. It decided not to proceed with an interim cap and is consulting on the method for a longer-term one. Its page on the review was last updated in October 2025.
Why interchange matters at launch
A card programme earns interchange on each payment, so the caps keep consumer cards a low-margin product in the EU and the UK. Commercial cards, issued to businesses for business expenses, sit outside the caps. An acquirer or a payment facilitator meets interchange from the other side, as a cost inside every price it quotes.
Interchange, scheme fees and acquirer margin
- Merchant service charge
- The whole fee a merchant pays its acquirer for card payments (Article 2 of the EU regulation). The UK's Payment Systems Regulator describes it as interchange, scheme fees and the acquirer's net revenue.
- Scheme fees
- Paid to the card scheme, Visa or Mastercard, by acquirers and issuers. The EU regulation does not cap them, but an acquirer's agreement with a merchant lists them next to interchange (Article 9).
- Acquirer margin
- What the acquirer keeps: its own costs of providing the service, plus its margin. The UK regulator's term is acquirer net revenue.
- Interchange++ pricing
- A price that passes interchange and scheme fees through at cost and shows the acquirer's part separately. Under the EU regulation, an acquirer charges unblended unless the merchant asks in writing for a blended charge (Article 9).
Where interchange shows up in a platform
Modules that do the work
- Card issuingVirtual and physical cards, wallets and controls, on the issuer processor you choose.
- Card acquiringCard acceptance on the phone, in store and online, through the acquirer you choose.
- CheckoutA hosted checkout for cards, wallets, bank payments and crypto, routed to the best provider.
- LedgerThe double-entry book of record behind every balance, fee and transfer.
Platforms that need it
Guides that go deeper
- How to launch a business account with expense cards for SMEsThe account, the cards and the controls around them: what a business account with expense cards needs, from licensed partners and KYB to SCA and the interchange rules for commercial cards.
- BIN sponsorship: how to launch a card programmeWho does what in a sponsored card programme, what the BIN sponsor, Visa and Mastercard ask of a programme manager, the rules for crypto-linked cards, and where an EMI licence fits.
- How to become a PSP or a payment facilitatorGateway, acquirer, payment facilitator or payment institution: where the licence line falls, how the card schemes register payment facilitators, what merchant KYB demands, and the UK and UAE rules.
Where it is written
The laws and standards this page's facts come from.
- Regulation (EU) 2015/751, the Interchange Fee Regulation (EUR-Lex)
- Regulation (EU) 2015/751 as it applies in the UK (legislation.gov.uk)
- Payment Systems Regulator, Market review into cross-border interchange fees
- Payment Systems Regulator, Market review into card-acquiring services, final report, glossary (MR18/1.8, November 2021)
- Mastercard Rules, 2 June 2026: Rules 8.1 and 8.3 (Mastercard)
General information, not legal advice: what applies to you depends on your services and your market.