The content of this article is provided for informational purposes only. You should always obtain independent business, tax, financial, and legal advice before making any business decision.
The card networks (Visa, Mastercard, Amex, Discover, etc.) introduce and make updates to their operating rules throughout the year. Most of the changes come during two release periods – Spring and Fall.
These network updates typically include fee introductions or updates, new mandates, new features, program changes, or updates to existing features.
While many of the updates require no action for merchants, some updates can require integration changes, fee impact, or forced adoption of services.
PayPal Braintree teams have worked together to identify the key updates for October 2025 and beyond and these updates are below.
The updates provide the nature of the update (fee change, mandate, new feature/update), the network implementing the change, and the regions in scope.
Note: The information in this document is accurate as of September 2025, provided for informational purposes, subject to change, and may not apply to all merchants or transactions.
Type: Program Change
Region: Global
Effective: June 1, 2025 (program changes); October 1, 2025 (new fees)
Merchant Impact: Awareness of new fraud/dispute thresholds and fee structure.
Ratios:
Acquirer Early Warning
Acquirer Above Standard
Acquirer Excessive
Merchant Excessive
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Type: Fee Change
Region: EU
Effective: Oct 1, 2025 (Israel: Sep 30, 2025). Out of scope for Turkey.
Merchant Impact: Increased fee for using PAN instead of tokens or 3DS.
How It Works
Program fee: 5 bps per txn when CEDP flag present (effective Apr 2025; pass‑through for IC+/IC++).
New update: Effective January 24, 2026, Visa is updating interchange rates for Level 2 and Level 3 data for small business:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, US, CA, CEMEA, LAC
Effective: Apr 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Increased fee when settlement currency differs from merchant’s local currency.
Type: Fee Changes
Region: EU
Multi‑year initiative to improve e‑commerce performance via tokenization, enhanced auth, data quality, and risk scoring. Updates three EU fees: 3DS pricing, E‑Commerce Token Facilitation, and Digital Commerce Services Fee (DCSF). Fees vary by Group A (domestic/intra‑EEA and UK/CH corridors) vs Group B (TR/IL/Europe cross‑border and rest‑of‑world to Europe corridors).
Per 3DS request. Current EUR 0.02 → increased with “Data Quality Met” discounted rates where specific data elements are passed.
Fee Name pending:
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Fee Name pending:
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Data Quality Met: pass these data points in 3DS messages -
Effective: Apr 1, 2026.
Current Fee: EUR 0.02
New Fee:
Effective: Apr 1, 2027. Flat per‑auth fee for bundled services which include:
Group A:
Group B:
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU
Effective: Apr 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Higher rates for zero‑amount account verification.
Improvements:
Fee Description:
Domestic AV:
Intraregional AV:
Interregional AV
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, US, CA, CEMEA
Effective: Apr 25, 2026
Merchant Impact: Higher fees for excessive cross‑border retries.
Type: Fee Change
Region: US
Effective: Apr 1, 2026 (with additional changes 2027)
Merchant Impact: New services added; pricing increases.
US DCSF (introduced Oct 2023) originally covered AVS, CVV2, MIT Service; charged per authentication attempt.
Added services as of Apr 1, 2026:
Pricing: Current 0.75 bps (min $0.0075).
Updated Pricing Effective 4/1/26:
Effective 4/1/27:
Type: Fee Change
Region: AP
Effective: Jul 2025 (original); revised pricing effective Apr 1, 2026.
Merchant Impact: New services added to DCSF; higher pricing. Applies to Brunei, Cambodia, Guam, Laos, Malaysia, Micronesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam.
Original services:
Added services:
Transaction Type:
Domestic:
Cross-border:
Type: Fee Changes
Region: US, AP
Effective: US: Apr 1, 2025; AP: Feb 1, 2026
Merchant Impact: Higher fee on recurring transactions using outdated credentials when an update was available ≥ 10 days prior.
Ways to avoid fees:
US:
AP (new fee from Feb 1, 2026): $0.09.
Type: Fee Changes
Region: CA
Effective: Jun 16, 2025; Jul 1, 2025; Sep 15, 2025
Effective June 16, 2025: Acquirer License Fee: merchants charged 0.00259% annually (increase of 0.00122%).
Effective July 1, 2025: Acquirer Assessment Fee: applied to all sales transactions.
Effective September 15, 2025: New Acquirer Clearing Fee (from Sep 15, 2025) applies to cleared transactions including purchase transactions, manual cash, credit/refund, first chargeback, 2nd presentment and arbitration chargeback transactions.
Type: Fee Changes
Region: US, CA
Effective: US: Jul 14, 2025; CA: Nov 3, 2025; further changes Feb 2, 2026.
Effective July 14, 2025 in US: removing $0.40 cap for txns ≥ $1,000; include previously excluded declines due to insufficient funds. DEF = 2 bps.
Effective November 3, 2025 in CA (Nov 3, 2025): remove $0.20 cap for txns ≥ $1,000.
DEF is per‑authorization; services bundled include:
Type: Fee Changes
Region: AU
Effective: Oct 6, 2025
Merchant Impact: Increased fee on non‑tokenized transactions for Australian merchants.
Type: Fee Change
Region: EU, AP, US, CA
Effective: Oct 13, 2025
Merchant Impact: New fee replaces Multi‑Currency Settlement Fee; charged weekly as percentage of cleared amounts when settlement currency differs from local currency.
Fee: 10 bps.
Note: Information accurate as of September 2025; provided for information only; subject to change; may not apply to all merchants or transactions.