Mastercard MATCH List: Reason Codes and How to Stay Off It

Who this helps: you run a subscription business, your chargeback rate is climbing or your processor has raised it with you, and you want to know what the MATCH list is, how close you are, and how to stay off it. If you are already listed, the removal section says plainly what can and cannot change.

For a subscription business, a closed merchant account stops every renewal at once, and a MATCH listing makes the next account hard to get for five years. The chargeback rule behind a listing is published, and it sits at 1%, below the 1.5% at which Visa and Mastercard flag a merchant as excessive. Here is how the rule works, and how to stay well clear of it.

What is the MATCH list?

The MATCH list is Mastercard's database of businesses whose merchant account was closed by their processor or acquiring bank (the bank that holds the merchant account) for one of 13 listed reasons, from fraud to excessive chargebacks. MATCH stands for Member Alert to Control High-Risk Merchants.

Acquirers must check every applicant against the list before approving them, and must report any merchant they terminate that meets the criteria. The record names the business and its principal owners, including addresses and tax IDs. Stripe's documentation says most processors automatically reject listed businesses or their principal owners, so a new company with the same owners can be turned down too.

Mastercard sets the list's rules in its Security Rules and Procedures manual, and the criteria in this guide follow the public summaries in Stripe's and Shopify's documentation.

What are the MATCH list reason codes?

The MATCH list has 13 reason codes, each one a reason a merchant was terminated that requires a listing. Two are set by numbers, 04 for excessive chargebacks and 05 for excessive fraud, and the rest describe conduct, from data breaches to illegal transactions.

MATCH list reason codes

Code 10, violation of standards, is the broadest. Mastercard's rules define it as breaking its standards for accepting cards, including honoring all cards, displaying the card brand marks, charges to cardholders, minimum or maximum transaction amounts and prohibited transactions.

Some guides call code 12 excessive chargebacks. Code 12 is PCI DSS non-compliance, and excessive chargebacks is code 04.

What chargeback rate gets you on the MATCH list?

A terminated merchant qualifies under code 04 when, in a single calendar month, its Mastercard chargebacks exceed 1% of its Mastercard sales transactions and total $5,000 or more. Both conditions have to be met in the same month, and Mastercard sets no minimum number of chargebacks.

The count is Mastercard only, and it compares chargebacks with sales in the same month. Mastercard's own monitoring program measures this month's chargebacks against last month's sales instead.

MATCH against the lines merchants already watch (as of October 2026)

Crossing the line does not list you by itself. Your processor or bank has to terminate your account first, and if it does and you meet the criteria, it is required to list you. Two details trip merchants up: winning the chargebacks later does not change the listing, and closing your account before your processor does will not prevent it.

How close is a subscription business to the MATCH line?

Closer than the 1.5% lines suggest, for two reasons. The $5,000 floor takes few chargebacks at subscription prices, and the ratio is measured in a way that pushes it up in any month when sales fall.

The $5,000 floor sets the smallest number of Mastercard chargebacks that can qualify, and the number depends on your price. Below a certain monthly volume the floor is the part of the rule you hit first; above it, the 1% ratio is.

Annual plans reach the floor fastest. At $120 a year, 42 chargebacks total $5,040, and for a business with fewer than about 4,200 Mastercard sales that month, 42 chargebacks are also more than 1%.

The same-month rule matters as much as the floor. Chargebacks arrive weeks after the sale, so the ones counted this month mostly come from earlier months, while the sales counted are this month's. A month when sales fall, after a seasonal peak, a pause in advertising or a large annual renewal month, shows a higher ratio from the same chargebacks.

Nina runs a meal-kit subscription at $34 a month and usually bills about 20,000 Mastercard renewals a month. A month with 160 Mastercard chargebacks is 0.8%, under the line. In a month when her sales dip to 15,000, the same 160 chargebacks, filed on earlier and busier months, are 1.07% and total $5,440. Her quiet month meets the code 04 criteria, even though Nina is still below Mastercard's 1.5% excessive chargeback line.

What happens when you are on the MATCH list?

For five years, new applications for credit card processing are likely to be declined. Stripe says a listing "generally disqualifies a merchant from processing with Stripe", and Shopify says it "generally can't process for businesses listed on MATCH". Each allows exceptions only for extenuating circumstances, such as identity theft in Stripe's case.

Processors that specialize in high-risk merchants say they accept some listed businesses, usually with a reserve held back from your payouts and higher fees. Expect card processing to cost more until the listing expires.

For a subscription business, the harder problem is the cards you already have on file. Renewals stop when the account closes, and stored cards can move only to a processor that meets the card industry's security standards. Stripe, for example, exports card data only to a PCI DSS Level 1 processor, leaves out cards saved through Link, and does not export the subscriptions themselves, so billing schedules have to be rebuilt. A listing shrinks the list of processors that could take those cards.

How do you check if you are on the MATCH list?

You cannot search the MATCH list yourself, because only acquiring banks and processors can query it. Ask the processor or bank that closed your account whether it listed you, and under which code.

Ask before you apply anywhere else, since a declined application is a poor way to find out. If you do not know who listed you, you can email Mastercard at matchbusinessowner@mastercard.com to request your listing details.

Can you get off the MATCH list?

Only in two cases. The processor or bank that listed you can remove the entry if it added you by mistake, or if you were listed under code 12 for PCI non-compliance and have since become compliant. Every other listing stays for five years.

Visa's VMSS is stricter. Visa does not accept appeals from merchants, and the listing bank can change or delete an entry only if it was made in error.

How does a subscription business stay off the MATCH list?

By keeping Mastercard chargebacks under 1% of Mastercard sales in every single month, and by never giving your processor or bank a reason to terminate. Five habits do most of the work.

1. Watch your Mastercard numbers on their own, every month. Count Mastercard chargebacks against Mastercard sales in the same calendar month, and add up their dollar total against $5,000. A blended rate across card brands can hide a Mastercard problem, and a slow month can push the ratio up on its own.
2. Stop disputes before they become chargebacks. An alert from Mastercard's Ethoca network tells you about a dispute so you can refund it, and a refund made in time stops the chargeback, so it never counts toward code 04. Alerts come only from the card issuers that take part in the network, so they cut the count rather than remove it. Visa's RDR and CDRN give you the same chance on Visa cards.
3. Cancel the renewals behind a dispute. A subscription that keeps renewing after a dispute can produce a second dispute next month, and each one counts.
4. Fix the billing that starts disputes. A statement descriptor customers recognize, a cancellation that works and a reminder before a trial converts address common causes of subscription disputes, as our prevention playbook covers.
5. Talk to your processor or bank before it acts. Visa measures acquiring banks on their whole portfolio, at 0.5% above standard and 0.7% excessive, so many raise concerns with individual merchants long before 1%, as our guide to what a good chargeback rate is explains. A remediation plan agreed early matters, because Visa's VMSS rules list merchants who did not remediate.

FAQ

Rules checked against Stripe's documentation on terminated merchant files, monitoring programs and payment data exports, Shopify's help center on monitoring programs, Mastercard's MATCH Pro product page and Visa's VAMP fact sheet. Last reviewed 5 October 2026.