If your business accepted Visa or Mastercard between 2004 and 2019, the Visa Mastercard business settlement is now paying out. Initial partial payments from a $5.54 billion damages fund began going to approved claimants in February 2026 and continue on a rolling basis. A separate $38 billion deal that changes swipe fee rules going forward received preliminary court approval on June 9, 2026, but has not been finalized and faces objections from major retailers.1Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement Home2Reuters. US Judge OKs Visa, Mastercard $38 Billion Swipe Fee Settlement
Payments From the $5.54 Billion Damages Fund
The damages settlement compensates merchants for interchange fees they paid on Visa and Mastercard transactions during the class period. Judge Margo K. Brodie granted final approval on December 13, 2019, and the Second Circuit affirmed the deal in March 2023.3Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP. In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation4Justia. Fikes Wholesale, Inc. v. HSBC Bank USA, N.A., No. 20-339 Class counsel moved for an initial distribution in August 2025, and the court authorized it on October 30, 2025. Checks started going out in February 2026.1Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement Home
What arrives now is a partial payment, not the full amount. The remainder follows once every claim is processed and outstanding disputes are resolved, including a fight over whether branded oil companies or their franchisee fuel retailers are the proper claimants.5Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Frequently Asked Questions
Payments are calculated pro rata. Each merchant gets a share of the fund proportional to the interchange fees it paid during the class period, so no one recovers 100% of what they paid. One outside estimate put recoveries at roughly $3,000 to $5,000 for every $1 million in credit card charges processed during the eligible period.6Wipfli. How Businesses Can Benefit From the Visa Mastercard Settlement Claims worth less than $5.00 are not paid.5Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Frequently Asked Questions
Epiq is administering claims. If you filed, you can check status through the Merchant Portal on the settlement website.7Epiq. Payment Card Interchange Fee Case Study
Who Qualified, and the Closed Claim Deadline
The settlement class covers all businesses in the United States that accepted Visa or Mastercard between January 1, 2004, and January 25, 2019. Excluded are the U.S. government, financial institutions that issued the cards or acquired the transactions, and certain merchants that had previously settled individually.5Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Frequently Asked Questions
The claim filing deadline was February 4, 2025, and it has passed.1Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement. Payment Card Interchange Fee Settlement Home If you didn’t submit a claim by that date, you are not eligible to receive money from the $5.54 billion fund. The current payment activity is the administrator working through claims that were already on file.
The $38 Billion Deal on Future Swipe Fees
This is the other track, and it doesn’t put money in merchants’ bank accounts. It changes the rules and fee structures going forward. An earlier $30 billion version was rejected by Judge Brodie on June 25, 2024, as insufficient.8CNN. Federal Judge Denies $30 Billion Settlement Between Visa, Mastercard9CNBC. Visa, Mastercard Reach Revised Swipe Fee Settlement With Merchants2Reuters. US Judge OKs Visa, Mastercard $38 Billion Swipe Fee Settlement
The core provisions:
- Visa and Mastercard must reduce interchange fees by 0.1 percentage point, with the reduction staying in place for five years.
- Standard consumer card rates are capped at 1.25% for eight years, which the parties describe as a reduction of more than 25%.
- The “honor-all-cards” rule ends. Merchants can choose whether to accept specific categories of cards (standard consumer, premium or rewards, and commercial) instead of being forced to accept every card on a network.
- Merchants gain expanded options to surcharge credit card transactions and to offer discounts that steer customers toward cheaper payment methods.10Quartz. Visa Mastercard Swipe Fee Settlement Preliminary Approval
Neither Visa nor Mastercard admitted wrongdoing.9CNBC. Visa, Mastercard Reach Revised Swipe Fee Settlement With Merchants
Objections That Could Still Reshape the Deal
Final approval has not been granted, and the pushback is loud. Walmart filed a formal objection on December 15, 2025, arguing that large national retailers have different interests than the small businesses that make up most of the class, and that the settlement should include opt-out rights, which it currently lacks.11Brookside Payments. Visa Mastercard 2026 Settlement
The National Retail Federation called the deal “all window dressing and no substance,” pointing out that the 0.1 percentage point cut is a small fraction of the average 2.35% swipe fee and doesn’t stop Visa and Mastercard from centrally setting rates for all issuing banks.12National Retail Federation. Retailers Call Reported Swipe Fee Settlement All Window Dressing and No Substance The National Association of Convenience Stores and Circle K noted that average interchange rates rose nine basis points between 2024 and 2025, so a 10-basis-point cut barely undoes recent increases. Doug Kantor of the Merchants Payments Coalition said of the surcharging provisions, “Being able to collect a toll to offset the cost of another toll does not change the fact that the initial toll is too high.”13Digital Transactions. Merchant Groups Voice Their Objections to the Latest Visa Mastercard Swipe Fee Settlement Offer
Supporters, meanwhile, defend the terms. The Electronic Payments Coalition estimates merchant savings of more than $200 billion. Executive Chairman Richard Hunt called it “a guaranteed win for Main Street.” Mastercard said the agreement “balances the interests of all parties involved,” and Visa described it as “meaningful relief” giving merchants “more flexibility and options.”14Payments Dive. Court Approves Visa Mastercard Settlement
Judge Cogan said he had received nearly 40 objection letters at the preliminary approval stage but that it was too early to tell whether the opposition reflects “widespread sentiment” or a “vocal minority” among 12 million merchants.15Yahoo Finance. Visa Mastercard Granted Preliminary Approval The final approval hearing has not yet taken place.
The Credit Card Competition Act
Merchant groups unhappy with the settlement are pushing a legislative alternative. The Credit Card Competition Act would require large banks to enable their credit cards to be processed over at least two unaffiliated networks, opening the door to competitors like Star, NYCE, and Shazam alongside Visa or Mastercard. It was reintroduced on January 13, 2026, as S. 3623 in the Senate (Senators Roger Marshall and Dick Durbin) and H.R. 7035 in the House (Representatives Lance Gooden and Zoe Lofgren).16NACS. Congress Reintroduces Credit Card Competition Act17U.S. Congress. S. 3623 – Credit Card Competition Act of 2026
The National Retail Federation projects the bill would save merchants and consumers $17 billion a year, and President Trump has publicly endorsed it.12National Retail Federation. Retailers Call Reported Swipe Fee Settlement All Window Dressing and No Substance16NACS. Congress Reintroduces Credit Card Competition Act As of mid-2026, it has not advanced beyond introduction.
The Separate Discover Settlement
If you’re checking on merchant settlements, there’s a second one worth knowing about, though it isn’t part of the Visa/Mastercard case. Discover Financial Services agreed to pay between $540 million and $1.2 billion to settle allegations that it misclassified consumer credit cards as commercial cards between January 2007 and December 2023, causing merchants to be charged higher interchange fees.18Law360. Discover Card Misclassification Deal Worth Up to $1.2B OK’d19Discover Merchant Settlement. Discover Merchant Settlement Home
What to Do Now
If you filed a claim in the Visa/Mastercard damages settlement before the February 4, 2025 deadline, log into the Merchant Portal to check status. Initial partial payments are going out; a second distribution follows once all claims and disputes are resolved. If you filed a Discover claim by May 18, 2026, watch for allocations later this year. And if the $38 billion equitable relief deal directly affects how your business will be charged going forward, the final approval hearing is the moment to watch — the terms above are what Judge Cogan blessed preliminarily, but they aren’t locked in yet.