Nonprofit Credit Card Processing: Are You Getting the Charity Rate?

Visa and Mastercard both publish a lower interchange rate for charities. On a Visa credit card it is 1.35% plus 5 cents, and it is the same on a basic card and a premium Visa Infinite card. Interchange is usually the largest part of what a nonprofit pays on a card gift, so the difference between getting that rate and missing it shows up on every donation.

Many nonprofits never get it. The rate depends on how the processor has set up the account, the merchant category code it assigned, and how the account is priced. This guide covers what the charity rates are as of October 2026, who they are meant for, why an organization can qualify and still not see the saving, and what to check on your own statement. The rates are from Visa's interchange schedule effective April 18, 2026 and Mastercard's effective April 17, 2026.

What interchange is, and why it matters to a nonprofit

When a donor gives by card, three parties take a share. The bank that issued the donor's card receives interchange, which Visa and Mastercard set in published schedules. The card network charges its own assessment fees. Your processor adds its markup. Interchange is usually the largest of the three, and it varies by card type, by how the card was accepted and by the kind of business accepting it.

That last point is where charities come in. Both networks have a separate interchange category for charitable organizations, priced below what most other businesses pay for the same card. The saving goes to the merchant only if two things are true: the transaction qualifies for the category, and your pricing passes interchange through to you.

The charity rates in 2026

Visa

Visa's schedule lists a Charity category for consumer credit cards, at 1.35% + $0.05 for card-present gifts and the same for card-not-present gifts. That rate applies across every Visa consumer credit product in the table, from traditional cards to spend-qualified Visa Infinite. For comparison, Visa's card-not-present Product 1 category ranges from 1.89% + $0.10 on standard cards to 2.60% + $0.10 on spend-qualified Visa Infinite cards, and a transaction that fails to qualify for any program falls to Non-Qualified Consumer Credit at 3.15% + $0.10.

Visa also gives card-not-present incentives of 0.05% to 0.15% off for tokenized and authenticated transactions, but the charity category is mostly excluded. An EMV token on its own earns no incentive for a charity transaction. A card-not-present charity transaction authenticated through Visa's Digital Commerce Authentication Program qualifies for the smallest incentive, 0.05% off.

Mastercard

Mastercard's schedule has a Charities category at 2.00% + $0.10 on consumer credit, the same on every tier from Core to World Elite. Business, commercial and large-market credit cards in the Charities category are also 2.00% + $0.10. Unregulated consumer debit and prepaid cards in the category are 1.45% + $0.15.

The Mastercard rate is flat rather than lower across the board. On a World Elite card it is well under that card's Merit I rate of 2.60% + $0.10. On a Core card, Merit I is 1.95% + $0.10, slightly below the charity rate. Most of the saving comes on premium rewards cards, which carry the highest standard rates.

Debit cards

Visa's 2026 schedule has no separate charity category for debit. Debit cards issued by banks with $10 billion or more in assets are capped by the Federal Reserve's Regulation II at 0.05% + $0.21, plus a cent for issuers that meet the Fed's fraud-prevention standards, whoever the merchant is. Visa debit cards from smaller, exempt banks follow Visa's ordinary debit categories. For card-not-present gifts those range from 0.65% + $0.15 (capped at $2.00) for CPS/Retail 2 to 1.65% + $0.15 for CPS/Card Not Present. A 2023 Visa schedule published by the State of Florida lists consumer debit and prepaid transactions at charitable and religious organizations as eligible for the lower Retail 2 program.

Who the charity rates are for

Neither network's current published rate table spells out eligibility. It is defined in each network's qualification documents, which are not public, so the most detailed public descriptions come from processors and card-acceptance programs that republish the requirements. Florida's Department of Financial Services publishes Visa and Mastercard schedules of this kind, dated April 2023.

• Visa: Florida's Visa schedule lists the Charity and Religious Organizations credit rate as open to merchant category codes 8398 (Charitable and Social Service Organizations) and 8661 (Religious Organizations). The organization must be recognized by the IRS as tax-exempt under section 501(c)(3), and transactions must be deposited and settled within two days.
• Mastercard: Florida's Mastercard schedule lists the Charities credit rate as open only to MCC 8398, with transactions deposited and settled within three days.

Sources disagree on whether churches qualify for the Visa rate. Florida's 2023 Visa schedule includes religious organizations. Several nonprofit payment providers say only MCC 8398 qualifies and that churches, schools and associations do not. If you are a church or ministry, ask your processor in writing which category your Visa credit transactions actually clear at, and check a statement to confirm.

What the merchant category codes cover

Your merchant category code is assigned by your processor when the account is set up, and it decides which interchange categories your transactions can reach. Visa's Merchant Data Standards Manual, April 2026 edition, defines the codes that nonprofits most often land in:

• 8398, Charitable Social Service Organizations: non-political fundraising organizations soliciting donations for social welfare services, and social service organizations themselves. It also includes public radio and television and crowdfunding merchants that take donations for individuals without receiving any financial benefit.
• 8661, Religious Organizations: organizations that provide worship services, religious training or study, or religious activities, such as churches, mosques, synagogues and temples.
• 8641, Civic, Social, and Fraternal Associations: alumni associations, chambers of commerce, fraternal associations, social clubs and veterans' organizations.
• 8651, Political Organizations: organizations that promote the interests of, or raise funds for, a political party or candidate.
• 8699, Membership Organizations (Not Elsewhere Classified).

An organization can be a 501(c)(3) and still be coded 8641 or 8699, for example if it signed up as a membership association. If it is, its transactions will not reach the charity category, whatever its tax status.

Why a qualifying nonprofit can still miss the rate

The wrong merchant category code

This is the most common cause and the easiest to fix. Processors often set up a new account under a general code, or under one that matches part of what the organization does, like event ticketing or a thrift store. Your statement or processor portal shows the MCC. If it is not 8398, or 8661 for a religious organization, ask why.

Flat-rate pricing

A flat-rate processor charges the same percentage whatever the interchange underneath. If you pay a flat 2.9% plus 30 cents, the charity rate goes to your processor, not to you. On interchange-plus pricing, interchange is passed through at cost and the processor's markup is shown separately, so a lower charity rate lowers your bill. Tiered or bundled pricing falls in between and is the hardest to check, because the statement groups transactions into buckets like qualified and non-qualified instead of showing the interchange category.

Late settlement and failed qualification

The charity category still requires the transaction to meet Visa's and Mastercard's basic qualification rules. According to Florida's 2023 schedules, that includes electronic authorization and settlement within two days for Visa and three for Mastercard. A batch left open over a long weekend after a gala, or a virtual terminal that someone forgets to close, can push gifts past that window and down to a higher rate.

Selling things as well as raising money

Many nonprofits take payments that are not donations: event tickets, merchandise, course fees, membership dues. Interchange categories are tied to the merchant category code on the account, not to what each payment was for, so it is worth asking your processor whether those payments should run under the same merchant account and code as your donations. The answer depends on the processor and on how much of your volume each one is.

Other card rules that affect fundraising

Passing card fees on to donors

Under Visa's rules for the US, a credit card surcharge is a fee a merchant adds to a credit card transaction for accepting the credit card. A required fee for giving by credit card falls under that definition, which brings in Visa's surcharge rules: credit cards only, never debit, a 3% cap, notice to your acquirer and disclosure to the donor. Our guide to surcharging and cash discount programs covers those rules, and state law adds its own.

Crowdfunding and marketplaces

Visa's rules do not allow charitable social service organizations, including crowdfunding merchants, to operate as a Visa marketplace or to sell through one as a retailer. A platform that collects donations for many separate causes needs to be set up in a way the rules allow, which is a question to settle with the processor before launch, not after.

Recurring gifts and card testing

Monthly giving runs on stored card credentials and on the same recurring-billing rules a subscription merchant follows. A donor who forgets a monthly gift can dispute it the way a customer disputes a forgotten subscription, so clear receipts and an easy way to cancel matter. Open donation forms with no minimum amount are also a common target for card testing, where fraudsters run stolen card numbers through small gifts to see which ones work. Our guides to subscription billing rules and to card testing attacks cover both in more detail.

A checklist for your next statement

1. Find your merchant category code on the statement or in your processor's portal. For most charities it should be 8398. For a church, 8661.
2. Confirm your 501(c)(3) status is current on the IRS Tax Exempt Organization Search, and that your processor has your determination letter on file.
3. Check how you are priced. If the statement does not show interchange by category, ask your processor for an interchange-level report or a quote on interchange-plus pricing.
4. Look for Visa credit transactions labelled with a charity category at 1.35% + $0.05, and Mastercard credit at 2.00% + $0.10. If you see Non-Qualified or EIRF downgrades instead, ask why.
5. Close card batches daily, including virtual terminals and event devices.
6. Ask whether event tickets, merchandise and dues should run on a separate account.

PayKings sets up nonprofit, charity and church merchant accounts and prices them on interchange-plus, so the network's charity rate shows on your statement when your transactions qualify for it. If your processor cannot tell you which interchange category your gifts clear at, that is worth fixing before your next campaign.