Merchants Risk Higher Fees Under New Visa Rules

Visa is now requiring merchants interested in receiving discounts on interchange fees for certain transactions to submit more accurate data to the card network. The change could lead to increased savings for businesses, but merchants that don’t comply with Visa’s rules may find themselves with more expenses to manage.

The company rolled out an enhanced system, the Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP), in the U.S. in April 2025. With the CEDP, Visa is nudging merchants to submit more comprehensive data on small business and commercial card transactions. 

The card network hasn’t cracked down in the past on businesses that input dummy data into transaction fields to access better rates, but that is all changing, according to a report from Payments Dive.

Beginning Oct. 17, Visa started enforcing the new rules on its program. Though the company provided advance notice of the change, merchants that haven’t paid close attention to the CEDP’s key dates may find themselves unprepared to take advantage of the program.

“I think that there are going to be merchants that are completely blindsided and shocked by what happens,” Dustin Magaziner, CEO at Paybright, told Payments Dive. 

While the news of a change from a card network can fly under a merchant’s radar, Magaziner predicts that the CEDP may have a negative impact on many businesses.

“It’s ten, maybe hundreds of thousands of merchants, that are going to see increased rates,” he said.

Now that Visa is enforcing the Commercial Enhanced Data Program, merchants that didn’t prepare for the program ahead of time may have to hustle to bring their processes up to speed.

If they don’t, Visa may assign them a non-verified status. Under the CEDP, merchants will receive a classification of verified or non-verified. 

Verified merchants, or those who consistently provide accurate and comprehensive data for qualifying transactions, become eligible for reductions in certain interchange rates under CEDP.

The good news for merchants is that Visa isn’t holding them to a perfect standard. The program allows for merchants to reach verified status even if they’ve made minor errors from time to time on the data they submit, according to a Versapay report.

Merchants who consistently submit incorrect or incomplete data may not receive favorable pricing under the program.

Non-verified merchants are those businesses that fail to provide the required data on a consistent basis. Merchants with good intentions to comply with the CEDP may still find themselves in this category if the information they provide is incomplete or full of non-specific data.

Visa will turn to artificial intelligence to monitor data from merchants and identify any information they provide that isn’t accurate, according to the Payments Dive report.

Magaziner said that practice raises concerns about what will happen in the event that AI makes a mistake, adding that merchants may not have an easy time trying to recoup funds when they don’t receive the discounts they expected.

Eric Cohen, CEO at Merchant Advocate, told Payments Dive that he agrees with Visa’s move to clean up incomplete or inaccurate data, but he thinks the company could have handled its communication about the program better.

“I have clients that do billions [of dollars] of volume a year — one client that does billions of billions — they’re not validated yet,” he explained.

Now that Visa is enforcing the CEDP rules, merchants that haven’t familiarized themselves with the program should do so as soon as possible.