Visa and Mastercard only put a merchant into their main dispute monitoring programs at a high rate and a high count. For most US and Canadian stores, Visa’s excessive level is a VAMP ratio of 1.5% with at least 1,500 disputes and fraud reports in a month, and Mastercard’s first level starts at 100 chargebacks and a 1.5% rate. A small store rarely reaches those counts. The limits that catch small stores first are lower: your payment provider’s own rules, such as Shopify’s 1.5% rate over 90 days, and Visa’s 0.5% “non-compliant” level, which starts at just 5 reports.
Below are the published thresholds from Visa, Mastercard, Stripe and Shopify, checked October 20, 2026, and a hypothetical 2,000-order store run through each to show which limit bites first and what it costs.
How card networks measure your dispute ratio
The networks count every dispute that is opened, whether you win it or not. Stripe’s documentation puts it plainly: monitoring programs “don’t consider dispute outcomes”, and Shopify’s chargeback monitoring page says “Winning a chargeback doesn’t remove it from your chargeback rate.”
Four rules decide the number the networks see:
- Disputes count when they arrive, not when you sold. Visa and Mastercard both assign a dispute or fraud report to the month the network received it. A dispute filed in March on a January order counts in March.
- Visa divides by the same month, Mastercard by the month before. Stripe’s guide says Visa uses payments in the same calendar month, while Mastercard divides the current month’s chargebacks by the previous month’s captured payments. A slow month after a busy one can push your Mastercard rate up.
- Refunds do not cancel a dispute. If a customer disputes a charge you already refunded, it can still count. Stripe notes that monitoring programs “don’t consider refunds when identifying disputes.”
- Each network counts only its own cards. A Visa ratio uses Visa transactions only. A store where Visa is half of card volume has half the denominator you might expect.
Stripe’s “Measuring disputes” page adds a benchmark: the industry treats dispute activity above 0.75% as excessive, and a sudden spike can trigger action sooner.
Visa VAMP: the 1.5% threshold and the fraud reports that count
The Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) took effect on April 1, 2025, combining five older fraud and dispute programs into one, according to Visa’s announcement. It has a feature that surprises many merchants: it counts fraud reports as well as disputes.
Visa’s fact sheet gives the formula as the count of fraud reports (TC40) plus disputes (TC15), divided by the count of settled transactions. A TC40 is a fraud report from the card issuer, which Stripe and Shopify show you as an early fraud warning. Shopify’s monitoring page says early fraud warnings can occur on refunded transactions, except for a reversal processed within 2 hours of capture. Stripe warns that a transaction appearing in both reports “will be counted twice.”
Disputes resolved through pre-dispute products, and fraud reports that qualify for Visa’s Compelling Evidence 3.0 rules, are left out of the count.
Excessive (merchant) US, Canada, EU, Asia Pacific 1.5% or higher (was 2.2% until April 1, 2026) 1,500 or more Visa assesses fees at this level, per Stripe
Excessive (merchant) Latin America and Caribbean 1.5% or higher 1,500 or more Same as above
Excessive (merchant) CEMEA 2.2% or higher 150 or more Plus at least USD 75,000 in volume
Non-compliant (as listed by Stripe and Shopify) All 0.5% 5 Stripe says Visa “may assess fees” at this level
Enumeration (card testing) All 20% of authorizations 300,000 enumerated attempts No fines, per Stripe and Shopify
From Visa’s VAMP fact sheet (2025), Stripe Docs “Dispute and fraud card monitoring programs” and Shopify Help Center “Monitoring programs”, checked October 20, 2026. Visa’s fact sheet presents 0.5% as an acquirer-level “above standard” ratio; Stripe and Shopify list it as a merchant non-compliant level.The 0.5% level matters most for small stores, because 5 reports is a low bar. Visa’s public fact sheet lists no merchant fee amounts; your processor passes on any assessment and tells you the figure.
Mastercard’s Excessive Chargeback Program and its fines
Mastercard’s Excessive Chargeback Program has two levels. You enter a level only if you meet both its count and its rate, using the current month’s chargebacks against the previous month’s transactions.
1 $0 $0
2 $1,000 $1,000
3 $1,000 $2,000
4 to 6 $5,000 $10,000
7 to 11 $25,000 $50,000
12 to 18 $50,000 $100,000
19 or more $100,000 $200,000
Monthly fines in US dollars from Stripe Docs and Shopify Help Center, checked October 20, 2026. From month 4, an issuer recovery assessment adds $5 for each chargeback over 300 in the month.Stripe gives a worked case: a merchant in month 4 of the lower level with 400 chargebacks pays $5,500, which is $5,000 plus 100 chargebacks over 300 at $5 each. You leave the program after 3 consecutive months below the threshold. Mastercard counts a chargeback even if you refunded it, even if 3D Secure shifted liability, and whatever the outcome, per Stripe.
A separate Mastercard Excessive Fraud Merchant program counts only fraud chargebacks and needs more than USD 50,000 of them in a month, so it is also aimed at larger sellers.
The limits your payment provider sets first
For a small store, the payment provider is usually the first to act, and it can act well below any network threshold.
Shopify Payments. Shopify’s Network Dispute Resolution Program page says merchants “with an NDRP-inclusive chargeback rate of 1.5% or higher over the last 90 days” can be automatically enrolled. In the program, eligible disputes are refunded to the customer automatically, with “no option to contest the dispute or submit evidence,” and you pay a fee for each one ($15 USD in the US; $15 CAD or $15 USD in Canada). Shopify also applies “a 10% reserve” to your payouts. To exit, your rate must drop below 1.00% and stay there for 30 consecutive days. Merchants below a minimum order volume are excluded, but Shopify does not publish that volume.
Shopify’s chargeback monitoring page also says a high rate can lead to a payout reserve on its own. You can see your rate in the admin at Settings, then Payments, under Chargeback monitoring, or by searching Analytics, then Reports, for “Chargeback rate” (paths checked October 20, 2026). If your payouts are already being held, our guide to what to do when Shopify holds your payout explains reserves in detail.
Stripe. Stripe does not publish an enrollment number of its own. It points to the 0.75% industry benchmark and says it will reach out if it sees “higher dispute activity or a significant increase in potentially fraudulent activity.”
Terminated merchant lists. If a processor closes your account, network rules may require it to list you. Shopify’s monitoring page lists Mastercard’s MATCH reason code 4 as chargebacks above 1% of sales transactions in a month and totalling $5,000 USD or more, with no minimum count. Visa’s VMSS reason code 22 requires 1,000 disputes and a 1.8% dispute-to-sales ratio in a single month. Shopify says it cannot remove a MATCH listing for excessive chargebacks, even after you fix the cause.
Worked example: which limit a 2,000-order store hits first
Here is a hypothetical store. It takes 2,000 card orders a month at a $60 average order value, steady from month to month. We assume 55% of orders are on Visa (1,100), 35% on Mastercard (700) and 10% on other cards. These splits are assumptions for illustration, not industry data. The table shows the smallest number of monthly disputes, or Visa disputes plus fraud reports, that reaches each line.
Visa VAMP non-compliant 0.5% of Visa transactions and at least 5 6 (Visa disputes plus fraud reports) 0.5% of Visa
Stripe industry benchmark Above 0.75% of all payments 16 (15 is exactly 0.75%) 0.8%
Shopify NDRP enrollment 1.5% over 90 days 30 a month on average (90 over 6,000 orders) 1.5%
Mastercard MATCH code 4 (if terminated) Over 1% and $5,000 or more 84 Mastercard chargebacks 12.0% of Mastercard
Mastercard Excessive Chargeback Merchant At least 100 and 1.5% 100 Mastercard chargebacks 14.3% of Mastercard
Visa VMSS code 22 (if terminated) At least 1,000 and 1.8% 1,000 90.9% of Visa
Visa VAMP excessive At least 1,500 and 1.5% 1,500 Not reachable with 1,100 Visa sales
Hypothetical model by E-commerce Partners using thresholds from Visa, Stripe Docs and Shopify Help Center, checked October 20, 2026. Calculated in Python by formula and re-checked with a count-up loop; both methods matched.
The count floors keep a store this size out of the network fine programs. Processor limits and Visa’s non-compliant level sit far lower. Hypothetical model; thresholds from Visa, Stripe and Shopify, checked October 20, 2026.
The gap is the point. To reach Visa’s excessive count at exactly 1.5%, you need 100,000 Visa card-not-present transactions in a month. Mastercard’s 100-chargeback floor at 1.5% needs about 6,667 Mastercard transactions. Below those volumes, the fines in the tables above are unlikely to apply to you directly. Your processor’s rules are what you are managing.
Why your Visa ratio can be double your chargeback rate
Because VAMP adds fraud reports to disputes, the number Visa sees can be much higher than the chargeback rate in your admin. Take the same store’s 1,100 Visa orders in one month, with 4 disputes and 5 early fraud warnings. Three of those warnings were on orders that also became disputes.
Visa disputes (your chargeback rate) 4 0.36%
Unique problem orders 6 0.55%
VAMP count (4 disputes + 5 fraud reports) 9 0.82%
Hypothetical example. The three orders with both a fraud report and a dispute count twice, as Stripe’s documentation describes.A store that looks fine at 0.36% is over Visa’s 0.5% non-compliant ratio with 9 reports. Refunding an order after a fraud warning stops the dispute and the dispute fee, but Shopify notes a fraud warning can still arrive on a refunded order unless the payment was reversed within 2 hours of capture, and VAMP counts it. That is why stopping fraud before capture does more for your ratio than refunding after. Our guide to stopping card testing bots covers the attacks that create these reports in bulk.
What a chargeback costs before any network fine
Most of the cost of a dispute is the lost sale, not the fee. Both main providers charge per dispute:
- Shopify Payments: $15 USD per chargeback in the US, and $15 CAD or $15 USD in Canada, returned if you win.
- Stripe (US): a $15 dispute received fee, plus a $15 dispute countered fee if you respond manually. Stripe’s pricing page says you get the countered fee back on won disputes; it does not say the received fee is returned.
Here is a hypothetical $60 order with $22 product cost, $7 shipping and Shopify’s 2.9% + 30 cent online rate ($2.04). We assume the goods are not recovered and the processing fee is not returned; check both with your provider.
Lost chargeback $22.00 $7.00 $2.04 $15.00 $46.04
Refund before a dispute $22.00 $7.00 $2.04 $0.00 $31.04
Hypothetical model. Fee from Shopify Help Center “Chargeback process” and card rate from shopify.com/pricing, checked October 20, 2026; product and shipping costs are assumptions.At this store’s volume, and assuming you win 30% of disputes (an assumption, not a benchmark), the monthly cost of lost disputes looks like this:
0.25% 5 3.5 $161.14
0.5% 10 7 $322.28
1.0% 20 14 $644.56
1.5% 30 21 $966.84
Hypothetical model: 2,000 orders a month, $46.04 per lost dispute, won disputes cost nothing because Shopify returns the fee. Excludes time spent on responses.At 1.5% over 90 days, the larger hit is cash flow. A 10% reserve on this store’s $120,000 of monthly sales would hold back about $12,000 of payouts, and you could no longer contest disputes in the program. For a deeper walk through one dispute, see what happens when a customer files a chargeback on Shopify.
How to keep your ratio under the limits that apply to you
- Track the right number. Check Shopify’s chargeback rate report or Stripe’s VAMP dashboard monthly. On Stripe, compare Visa’s figures with Stripe’s daily estimate.
- Count fraud warnings, not just disputes. Add early fraud warnings to your Visa disputes and divide by Visa orders to estimate your VAMP ratio.
- Stop fraud before capture. Stripe notes that issuers must report possible fraud on a captured payment, even a refunded one, but are not required to for an authorization you never capture. Review risky orders before you capture or fulfill them.
- Refund fast when you will not win. A refund before a dispute is filed usually avoids the fee and the dispute, and in our example saves $15 per order.
- Use a clear statement descriptor. Stripe says a large number of general disputes can come from confusing billing statements or receipts.
- Set expectations on delivery and subscriptions. Show shipping times before checkout, send tracking, and send renewal reminders, as Stripe’s prevention guidance recommends.
Our piece on friendly fraud covers disputes from real customers, and our Shopify fees calculator puts dispute fees next to your other costs.
Frequently asked questions
What chargeback ratio is too high?
It depends on who is measuring. Stripe calls activity above 0.75% excessive by industry standard. Visa lists 0.5% with at least 5 reports as non-compliant and 1.5% with at least 1,500 as excessive in the US and Canada. Shopify can enroll you in its dispute program at 1.5% over 90 days.
Do won chargebacks count toward my ratio?
Yes. Stripe, Shopify and Mastercard all count disputes regardless of outcome. Winning gets the money back, not the count.
Does American Express have the same thresholds?
The Visa and Mastercard programs above do not cover American Express. Stripe’s and Shopify’s monitoring pages describe Visa, Mastercard and Australia’s AusPayNet programs only, so ask your provider how it monitors other card brands.
How do I get out of a monitoring program?
Mastercard removes you after 3 consecutive months below the threshold. Shopify’s dispute program needs your 90-day rate below 1.00% for 30 consecutive days. Visa releases accounts once metrics drop below the thresholds, per Shopify.
The takeaway
Card network fines are built for large merchants, with count floors of 100 to 1,500 a month. A small store’s real limits are its processor’s rules and Visa’s low 0.5% level, and Visa adds fraud warnings to your count. Track Visa disputes plus fraud warnings each month, stop fraud before capture, and treat 0.75% as your warning line.
Sources
- Visa, “Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program fact sheet 2025”. corporate.visa.com
- Visa Perspectives, “Introducing the Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program” (August 30, 2024, updated March 24, 2025). corporate.visa.com
- Stripe Docs, “Dispute and fraud card monitoring programs”. docs.stripe.com
- Stripe Docs, “Measuring disputes”. docs.stripe.com
- Stripe, “Pricing” (US dispute fees). stripe.com
- Shopify Help Center, “Monitoring programs”. help.shopify.com
- Shopify Help Center, “Chargeback monitoring”. help.shopify.com
- Shopify Help Center, “Network dispute resolution programs”. help.shopify.com
- Shopify Help Center, “Chargeback process” (fees by country). help.shopify.com
- Shopify, “Pricing” (US online card rate). shopify.com
Last reviewed: October 20, 2026. Thresholds, fines and fees are as published by Visa, Stripe and Shopify on that date; card network rules change, so confirm current figures with your payment provider.
How this article was made: researched and drafted with AI assistance, with every factual claim checked against the sources above. The 2,000-order store, its card mix, the $60 order costs, the fraud warning example and the 30% win rate are hypothetical models, not observed results.
Related guides
- What happens if a customer files a chargeback on Shopify?
- What happens if Shopify holds your payout?
- Friendly fraud is rising: what merchants can do
Magazines
COMMUNITY MARKETING & ADVERTISING
-
Ana Hoffman
873564 pt -
Pro WebGuru
836301 pt -
trendmarketers
737838 pt -
hpmurah2u
645001 pt