Card declines can occur for various reasons and might lead to a lost sale. Preventing them requires understanding how credit card transactions are authorized and what can cause a decline. Payment processors provide decline codes that indicate their reason for rejecting a transaction. Businesses should learn to recognize and understand these codes in order to successfully respond to a declined transaction—and potentially salvage the sale.

What’s in this article?

• What is card authorization?
  
• What is a decline code?
  
• Types of card declines
  
• List of card decline codes
  
• Stripe decline codes
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What is card authorization?

Card authorization is the approval process that checks to see if a cardholder has sufficient funds to cover the purchase they are attempting to make. It happens behind the scenes when a card transaction is processed.

For an in-person transaction, a customer swipes, taps, or inserts their credit or debit card into a card reader; for an online purchase, they enter their payment information when prompted. That information is sent to the business’s acquirer (also called the “acquiring bank”), which routes it through the correct card network to reach the issuer, the financial institution that issued the card to the cardholder.

The issuer examines the cardholder's account and determines whether there are enough funds or available credit to complete the transaction. The issuer approves or declines the request. If approved, the issuer transfers the funds to the acquirer, which deposits them in the business's account.

What is a decline code?

A decline code is typically a two-digit, alphanumeric error code that indicates why a card transaction has been declined. While the code can originate from a number of sources, it often comes from the issuing bank, payment processor, or credit networks.

Understanding where a decline originates can help businesses diagnose the issue and determine next steps.

Typical reasons the issuer (customer’s bank) might decline a transaction

• Insufficient funds or credit limit exceeded
  
• Suspected fraud or unusual activity
  
• Incorrect card details entered (e.g., wrong CVV or expiry date)
  
• The card has been reported lost or stolen
  
• The account has been frozen or closed
  

Typical reasons the acquirer (merchant’s bank) might decline a transaction

• The merchant's account is not set up to accept that credit or debit card type
  
• The transaction exceeds the merchant's processing limits
  
• The merchant's account has been suspended or flagged for risk
  

Businesses won’t always see the exact code. If they are using a payment processor like Stripe, they may see other unique decline codes or payment gateway response codes that indicate why the transaction failed and provide clues for solving the issue and completing the transaction.

Types of card declines

There are many different types of card declines. The most common reason that a debit or credit card is declined is insufficient funds or credit, accounting for 44% of declines in an Ethoca study. Businesses can’t do much in these cases, since the issue originates with the cardholder. Offering buy now, pay later options, which Stripe supports, can help minimize declines due to insufficient funds. Beyond that, the cardholder may need to move money from another account to the account with insufficient funds to complete the transaction.

Another common reason for debit or credit card declines is incorrect data. This issue is more common with online transactions, where cardholders are required to enter their card number as well as the card’s CVV and expiration date. One in five card declines occur when a customer makes a mistake and inputs incorrect information, according to the same Ethoca study. This is easily resolved if the cardholder reenters their information correctly.

Card payments can also be declined for suspected fraudulent activity, which can be triggered by large purchases or a large volume of transactions over a short period of time. The cardholder can resolve this issue by communicating with their issuing bank and confirming their identity, which will authorize the charges.

Sometimes cards are declined because the card has not been activated yet, which can be resolved if the cardholder completes the specified activation process. Similarly, a card that has expired will be declined, and cardholders will have to use another payment option. Damage to a card’s chip or strip can also lead to a decline if the terminal is unable to read the card. Other options, in this case, are manual entry of card data or contactless payment, if available.

A debit or credit card will also be declined if the terminal is not compatible with the card network associated with the card. For example, if the card uses the American Express card network and the terminal does not communicate with American Express, then the transaction cannot be processed. Solutions like Stripe work with most major card networks, both in the US and globally, which helps avoid declines related to an unsupported card network.

List of card decline codes

Below is a list of the card decline codes that may appear if a processor determines that a transaction cannot be processed. (Note that payment gateway response codes might differ from bank-issued decline codes.) Each code denotes a different reason for why a payment is declined.

• 01: Refer to issuer
  
• 02: Refer to issuer (special condition)
  
• 03: Invalid merchant
  
• 04: Pick up card (no fraud)
  
• 05: Do not honor
  
• 06: Error
  
• 07: Pick up card (fraud)
  
• 10: Partial approval
  
• 12: Invalid transaction
  
• 13: Invalid amount
  
• 14: Invalid account number
  
• 15: No such issuer
  
• 19: Re-enter transaction
  
• 21: No action taken
  
• 25: Unable to locate record in file
  
• 28: File temporarily not available for update or injury
  
• 41: Lost card, pick up
  
• 43: Stolen card, pick up
  
• 51: Insufficient funds
  
• 52: No checking account
  
• 53: No savings account
  
• 54: Expired card
  
• 55: Incorrect PIN
  
• 57: Transaction not permitted—card
  
• 58: Transaction not permitted—terminal
  
• 59: Suspected fraud
  
• 61: Exceeds approval amount limit
  
• 62: Invalid/restricted service code
  
• 63: Security violation
  
• 64: Transaction does not fulfill AML requirement
  
• 65: Exceeds withdrawal limit
  
• 70: PIN data required
  
• 75: Allowable number of PIN entry tries exceeded
  
• 76: Unsolicited reversal
  
• 78: Blocked, first use
  
• 79: Already reversed
  
• 82: Negative CAM, dCVV, iCVV, or CVV results
  
• 85: No reason to decline
  
• 86: Cannot verify PIN
  
• 91: Issuer or switch unavailable
  
• 92: Unable to route transaction
  
• 93: Transaction can’t be completed—violation of law
  
• 96: System error
  
• 97: Invalid CVV
  
• 9G: Blocked by cardholder/contact cardholder
  
• 1A: Additional customer authentication required
  
• R0: Recurring charge stopped at customer request
  
• R1: Recurring charge stopped at customer request
  

Stripe uses its own decline codes, which cover many of the same potential reasons as the traditional decline codes, but spell out the problem more clearly. The Stripe decline codes are as follows:

Stripe decline codes

Stripe uses its own decline codes. These payment gateway response codes cover many of the same potential reasons as the traditional decline codes, but explain the problem more clearly. The Stripe decline codes are as follows:

How Stripe Payments can help

Stripe Payments provides a unified, global payments solution that helps any business—from scaling startups to global enterprises—accept payments online, in person, and around the world.

Stripe Payments can help you:

• Optimize your checkout experience: Create a frictionless customer experience and save thousands of engineering hours with prebuilt payment UIs, access to 125+ payment methods, and Link, a wallet built by Stripe.
  
• Expand to new markets faster: Reach customers worldwide and reduce the complexity and cost of multicurrency management with cross-border payment options, available in 195 countries across 135+ currencies.
  
• Unify payments in person and online: Build a unified commerce experience across online and in-person channels to personalize interactions, reward loyalty, and grow revenue.
  
• Improve payments performance: Increase revenue with a range of customizable, easy-to-configure payment tools, including no-code fraud protection and advanced capabilities to improve authorization rates.
  
• Move faster with a flexible, reliable platform for growth: Build on a platform designed to scale with you, with 99.999% historical uptime and industry-leading reliability.
  

Learn more about how Stripe Payments can power your online and in-person payments, or get started today.