Reason codes

This guide outline the different reason codes that could occur for card scheme transactions and the different types of declines.

Overview

Reason codes are used as a way for the card issuer to provide for what and why a payment transaction might not go through. This can help you to understand on how and what you can advise your consumer to do.

These codes are shown when logged into your Portal account and can be seen under the Declined overview of payments.

Unfortunately, most declines are categorized by the card issuer as “generic”. This means that it is not always possible for Checkout to know exactly why a payment was declined. If all of the card information seems correct, it is best to have your consumer contact their card issuer and ask for more information.

For privacy and security reasons, card issuers can only discuss the specifics of a declined payment with their cardholders. This means that Checkout cannot help with this.

Types of declines

There exists two types of declines that can occur on card scheme payments; soft declines and hard declines.

This section describes the differences between the two, on how to proceed and what it means in conjunction with the reason codes.

Soft decline

A soft decline occurs when the issuing bank approves the payment, but the transaction fails at some other point in the process.

Examples of when a soft decline may occur could be because:

Insufficient funds
Card activity limit exceeded
Failures due to either system, technical, or infrastructure issues
Expired cards

You can check all the soft declines in the reason codes table here.

Hard decline

A hard decline is when the issuing bank does not approve the payment. In other words, hard declines are permanent authorization failures and should not be retried.

Examples of when a hard decline may occur could be because:

Possible fraud
Insufficient available credit
Lost or stolen card

You can check all the hard declines in the reason codes table here.

Account verification

If you are a subscription merchant and you are verifying cards with account verification, and it fails with a hard decline reason code then the consumer needs to be contacted so they can update their card details.

If you are a subscription merchant and you are verifying cards with account verification, and it fails with a soft decline reason code then you are allowed to attempt a charge.

You can read more about subscriptions from here.

Descriptions of reason codes

The following table outlines all of the reason codes for each of the card schemes including the decline type, a description of what it means and what next steps could be done for either you or the consumer to proceed with a payment:

Please note that the following reason codes does not apply for American Express as of now.

In the Type column, soft declines are indicated as SD and hard declines as HD. In the Next steps column, you can suggest on how the consumer can proceed with the transaction.

Code	Scheme	Type	Description	Additional info	Next steps
00	Visa, Mastercard	-	The transaction is approved and completed successfully
01	Visa, Mastercard	SD	The bank issuer declined the transaction		The consumer should contact their issuing bank to clarify the situation
03	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Refer To Card issuer		The consumer needs to contact their card issuer for more information
04	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Pick up card (no fraud)		The consumer needs to contact their card issuer for more information
05	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Do not honor	The issuing bank is unwilling to accept the transaction	Ask the consumer for another card to complete the transaction or ask them to contact their bank for more details
06	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Error	When the code occurs for a one-time transaction, do not rerun the card and do not provide any more goods or services to the cardholder. For the recurring or scheduled transaction, ensure that the card was not incorrectly flagged as fraudulent	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
07	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Pickup card, special condition	The card issuer requests to retain the card, which can be due to a suspected counterfeit or stolen card.	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
12	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Invalid Transaction	The issuer does not allow this type of transaction on this card/account. Make sure that payments are correctly configured.	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
13	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Invalid Amount	The card issuer has declined the transaction because of an invalid format or field	The consumer should retry or use another payment method
14	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Invalid account number (no such number)		Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
15	Visa, Mastercard	HD	No such issuer (first 8 digits of account number do not relate to an issuer identifier)		Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
19	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Re-enter transaction	The transaction cannot be processed temporarily
22	Mastercard	SD	Suspected Malfunction	The issuing bank is not responding during the transaction	The cardholder should check the card information and try processing again
30	Mastercard	SD	Format Error	This could be because of the card configuration	Double-check the setup on your merchant account in Portal, as it may be incorrect
31	Mastercard	SD	Bank Not Supported By Switch	The consumer's bank has declined the transaction because it doesn’t allow using the card for mail/telephone, fax, email, or internet orders. The error usually comes with the Discover card, so the customer should use another card. If the cardholder didn’t use a Discover card, ask them to contact their bank.	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card
34	Mastercard	SD	Suspected Fraud, Retain Card	The issuing bank declined the transaction as there is suspected fraud on this credit card number	Monitor subsequent transactions to check for fraudulent transactions on alternate cards. If there are multiple fraudulent transactions, please contact us.
41	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Lost card, pick up		Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card.
42	Mastercard	SD	No Universal Account	The issuing bank declined the transaction as the account type is not valid for this card number	Ask the consumer to use a separate card or to contact their bank.
43	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Stolen card, pick up	The bank has declined the payment because the card has been reported stolen. This will decline both one-time an recurring transactions	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card.
46	Visa	HD	Closed Account	The issuer will never approve
51	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Insufficient Funds	The transaction is denied by the issuing bank as there are not enough funds in the associated bank account, or the transaction will put the consumer's credit card over the limit	Request a different card from a consumer or ask them to contact their issuing bank.
54	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Expired card or expiration date missing		Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card.
55	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Invalid PIN	The consumer has entered an incorrect PIN	The consumer should re-enter their PIN or use another payment method.
56	Visa, Mastercard	HD	No Card Record	The issuer declined the transaction as the credit card number doesn’t exist	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card.
57	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Transaction not permitted to the cardholder		The consumer needs to contact their card issuer for more information.
58	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Function Not Permitted To Terminal	The code appears when the card cannot be used for this type of transaction or when the merchant processing account is not configured properly
59	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Suspected Fraud	The issuer declined the transaction because it appeared fraudulent.	Monitor all the transactions processed after the error occurred.
61	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Withdrawal Limit Exceeded	The issuer has declined the transaction because it will exceed the customer’s card limit.	Ask the consumer to use another card.
62	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Restricted Card	The card is invalid in a specific region or country, or the consumer tried to pay online with a card that doesn’t support your online payments
63	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Security violation	The card issuer indicated a security issue with this card	Ask the consumer to use another payment method. Alternatively, the consumer can try again after resolving the issue with their bank.
65	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Exceeds withdrawal count limit / Withdrawal count limit exceeded	The consumer has exceeded their card usage frequency limit	The consumer can use another payment method or try again with the same card after resolving the card limit issue.
75	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Allowable number of PIN tries exceeded	The consumer has entered an incorrect PIN more times than is allowed by the issuing bank	The consumer should retry or use another payment method
78	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Invalid/nonexistent account specified (general)	The transaction is from a new cardholder, and the card has not been properly unblocked
79	Visa, Mastercard	HD	Life Cycle	The transaction is refused due to invalid card data	Ask the consumer to contact their bank or update their payment details with a new card.
80	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Credit issuer unavailable	The issuing bank cannot be contacted	The consumer should retry or use another payment method.
82	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Policy	The transaction is refused due to a policy reason
82	Visa	SD	Negative online CAM, dCVV, iCVV, CVV, or CAVV results or Offline PIN authentication interrupted	The cardholder verification method failed for CAM, dCVV, iCVV, CVV, or a service code for card-present transactions
83	Mastercard	SD	Fraud/Security	The transaction is refused because the card issuer suspects this payment to be fraudulent
85	Visa, Mastercard	SD	No reason to decline	The issuing bank cannot identify a specific problem, but the transaction still didn’t go through.	The consumer can start the transaction again from scratch, and if the issue persists, the consumer can either call their issuing bank for more information, or they can also try using another credit card
86	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Cannot verify PIN	The PIN cannot be validated	If applicable, the transaction can be reattempted as a non-PIN transaction
91	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Card Issuer Unavailable	There was a problem contacting the issuing bank to authorize the transaction	The consumer should attempt to process this transaction again. If the problem persists, the consumer should contact their bank
92	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Unable To Route Transaction	The consumer's card can’t be found for routing, and the code is mostly used for a test credit card number	The cardholder should try to complete a transaction again
93	Visa, Mastercard	SD	Transaction cannot be completed; violation of law	The issuing bank will not allow this transaction	The consumer should use another payment method
96	Mastercard	SD	System malfunction	The issuing bank cannot be contacted	The consumer should retry or use another payment method.

Checkout window

Please be aware that it is not possible for Checkout to show which specific error code and description is occurring in the checkout window.

This is to avoid and ensure any fraud from happening. This is why error messages are shown as this:

Testing

If you want to try and test for different flows and scenarios with the card schemes in the checkout demo store in connection with these reason codes, you can read more about the following below: