This page discusses the responses from card issuers and how to respond to each of them. By suppressing retries for transactions that will never be approved, you can avoid penalties and maintain favorable merchant classification.

Authorizations

Treating all declines as retry candidates wastes transaction fees, triggers fraud rules at the issuer, and exposes the merchant to Visa Risk Acceptance Framework (RAF) fees — a structured penalty program that charges merchants for non-compliant retry behavior. The sections below describe when and when not to retry a declined transaction based on the response codes returned by the issuer.

Hard declines - Do not retry

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Do not retry declined transactions that return codes indicating the transaction will never be approved. See the table for detailed recommendations about how to handle each response code.

Hard declines are permanent issuer refusals. The card, account, or transaction condition that caused the decline will not change on a subsequent attempt. Retrying these transactions generates cost with zero probability of recovery and directly contributes to Visa RAF fee exposure.

The table below defines the response codes associated with declines and what action to take for each response:

Code	Meaning	Retry?	Recommended action
004	Pick up card	Never	Suppress immediately. Flag for fraud review. Collect a new credential.
007	Pick up card, special condition	Never	Suppress immediately. Flag for fraud review. Collect a new credential.
012	Invalid transaction	Never	Review transaction data for errors. Collect a new credential.
014	Invalid card number	Never	Flag for cardholder re-entry. An invalid PAN cannot be approved. Collect a new credential.
015	No such issuer	Never	Flag for cardholder re-entry. BIN not recognized — invalid card. Collect a new credential.
041	Lost card	Never	Suppress immediately. Flag for fraud review. Collect a new credential.
043	Stolen card	Never	Suppress immediately. Flag for fraud review. Collect a new credential.
046	Closed / cancelled account	Never	Remove from the active card store. Trigger the account updater or collect a new credential.
054	Expired card	With the new expiration	Run the account updater two months before expiry. Do not retry with the existing expiration. Update expiration date.
057	Transaction not permitted	Never	Card type not authorized for this transaction class. Collect a new credential.
062	Restricted card	Never	Card blocked for this merchant category. No path to approval. Collect a new credential.
063	Service not allowed	Never	The issuer has blocked cross-border or gaming transactions. Collect a new credential.
R0	Stop payment order	Never	The cardholder has instructed their bank to stop payments to this merchant. Collect a new payment method.
R1	Revocation of authorization order	Never	The cardholder has revoked authorization for this merchant. Collect a new payment method.
R3	Revocation of all authorizations	Never	The cardholder has revoked all stored authorizations. Remove the card from the file immediately. Collect a new payment method.

Soft declines — Retry with care

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Retry soft declines only after one to three days in order for the decline reason to be resolved. See the table for details about how to handle each type of soft decline.

Soft declines are transient. The card and account are valid, but the transaction failed due to a temporary condition — typically insufficient funds, a temporary hold, or an issuer risk threshold. These are legitimate retry candidates, but with appropriate timing and attempt limits:

Code	Meaning	Retry?	Recommended action
051	Insufficient funds	Once, 24–72hrs	Retry around payday windows. Limit to 2–3 attempts.
002	Refer to the issuer	Once, 24–72hrs	The issuer wants cardholder to call. Retry once after 24hrs.
061	Exceeds limit	Once, 24–72hrs	Temporary limit reached. Retry after billing cycle resets.
065	Exceeds withdrawal limit	Once, 24–72hrs	Temporary limit reached. Retry after billing cycle resets.
005	Do not honor	Yes, 2–3 attempts	Ambiguous — can be temporary.

Issuer Retry Behavior Penalties

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Implement a negative card list that suppresses retries on hard decline codes and enforces a maximum number of retries on soft decline codes.

Suppressing and limiting retries on transactions that will not be approved eliminates exposure to fees associated with retrying transactions in the Never Approve categories and reduces exposure to fees associated with Excessive Reattempts. The Visa Risk Acceptance Framework fees and MAC codes section provide additional details about how to reduce exposure to these risks.

Visa Risk Acceptance Framework (RAF) fees

Visa's Risk Acceptance Framework is a fee program applied to merchants whose retry behavior falls outside network guidelines. Four RAF categories are directly impacted by suppressing hard declines and limiting retries on soft declines:

RAF program	What triggers it
VS RAF Never Approve Domestic	Retrying Visa hard decline codes on US-issued cards billed in USD — codes that Visa has determined will never approve
VS RAF Never Approve Cross-Border	Same hard decline retry behavior on cross-border Visa transactions — issuer country does not match transaction currency
VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Domestic	Retrying soft decline codes (51, 05, 02, 61) more than the permitted number of times on domestic Visa transactions
VS RAF Excessive Reattempts Cross-Border	Same excessive retry behavior on cross-border Visa soft declines

MAC codes

The Mastercard Merchant Advice Code (MAC) returned as part of the authorization response indicates whether a merchant should retry at a later time or update the payment credentials before trying again. The following codes indicate potential for reducing exposure by suppressing hard declines and limiting retries on soft declines:

MAC code	Field meaning	Action
M001	New account information available	Trigger Account Updater. The issuer is confirming that updated card credentials exist.
M002	Cannot approve at this time, try again later	Retry the transaction after an interval.
M003	Do not try again	Add these accounts to the negative card list and suppress them. Retrying these transactions generates unnecessary network fees and RAF exposure.
M040	Consumer non-reloadable prepaid card	Card type indicator: non-reloadable prepaid. Does not impact retrying the transaction.
M041	Consumer single-use virtual card number	Card type indicator: single-use virtual card. Does not impact retrying the transaction.
M043	Consumer multi-use virtual card number	Indicates that the card may be used multiple times while still being identified as a virtual card.

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See the Account Updater page for information about keeping cardholder data up to date to increase first-time transaction approvals.