Visa and Mastercard Subscription Rules for Merchants (2026)

Who this helps: you run a subscription business, you offer a free trial or an annual plan, and you want to know what Visa and Mastercard require of you and which parts your billing platform already handles.

Visa and Mastercard both write rules for subscription billing, and both bury them in long rulebooks: Visa's runs to 923 pages, and Mastercard's processing rules to 436. The two agree on the outline: show the terms, remind before the charge, make canceling easy. They differ on the details, and on a free trial there is exactly one day on which a single reminder satisfies both. Here is what each network requires as of October 2026, what changed this year, and which parts your billing platform handles for you.

What are Visa and Mastercard's subscription rules?

Visa and Mastercard's subscription rules are the requirements every business must meet when it stores a customer's card and charges it on a schedule. Both networks require the terms to be shown and accepted at checkout, a reminder before certain charges, and a way to cancel online.

Visa files them under recurring transactions in its Core Rules, April 2026 edition, and Mastercard under recurring payment transactions in its Transaction Processing Rules, June 2026 edition. Mastercard says its rules apply whether or not you use merchant category code (MCC) 5968, the code for subscription merchants, and to business customers as well as consumers, though not to utilities, telecom, insurance or existing debt. Visa's apply to every merchant that stores a card for future charges. Neither network enforces them on you directly. Your acquirer, the bank that holds your merchant account, answers to the network for your compliance, and Mastercard can fine acquirers whose merchants break the rules.

Visa vs Mastercard subscription rules (as of October 2026)

What must your checkout page show?

The price, how often you will charge it, and the trial terms, on the page where the customer enters their card, with a click to accept. Mastercard spells out what doesn't count: a link to another page, a box the customer has to expand, or text they have to scroll to.

In practice, the terms can be one line beside the card field, such as "Free for 14 days, then $59.99 a year until you cancel." Visa asks for the same terms, shown apart from your general terms and conditions. For a free trial, Visa adds that they must be clearly visible on the checkout screen and accepted with a click-to-accept button.

In Europe, Visa also lists what the card-entry page and the checkout screen must show, down to the amount due today even if it is zero and the last four digits of the card.

Physical products add a step on Mastercard. After the trial, the customer must explicitly agree to the start date, amount, payment date, statement name and how to cancel before you charge full price, and every charge must run under the same merchant account and name.

When should you send a free trial reminder?

If you send one reminder, send it 7 days before the trial ends. Visa requires the reminder at least 7 days before the first charge, and Mastercard requires it no less than 3 and no more than 7 days before a digital product's trial ends, so day 7 is the only single day that satisfies both.

Two reminders work too: one 7 or more days out for Visa, and a second 3 to 7 days out for Mastercard. Neither rule caps the number of reminders you send.

Visa and Mastercard also overlap on what the reminder says. Visa asks for the amount, the date of the charges that follow, and a link or other simple way to cancel online or by text message. Mastercard asks for the basic terms and clear instructions on how to cancel. A reminder with the price, the charge date and a cancel link meets both.

Maya runs Stillwater, a meditation app with a 14-day free trial that converts to $59.99 a year. A customer who starts the trial on June 1 is charged on June 15, so the reminder goes out on June 8: early enough for Visa, and late enough for Mastercard. A year later, Mastercard wants another reminder before the $59.99 renewal, sent between May 16 and June 8.

Trials of 7 days or less are where Visa and Mastercard part ways. Mastercard's reminder applies only to trials longer than 7 days. Visa's rule doesn't say how to handle a trial shorter than the 7-day notice, and Stripe's answer is to send the reminder the moment the trial starts. Physical-product trials follow a different Mastercard rule, the fresh consent described in the checkout section.

Does Stripe send the trial reminder for you?

Yes, once you turn it on. In your billing settings, turn on Send a reminder email 7 days before a free trial ends, and Stripe emails the customer 7 days before the trial ends, or as soon as the trial starts if it is shorter, with a link to cancel.

Stripe's trial features cover two more pieces. When you send successful payment emails, receipts for a trial subscription carry the trial details and the cancellation link. The first paid charge also gets * TRIAL OVER in its descriptor, which overwrites everything after the 10th character, so a longer descriptor is cut on exactly the charge a customer is most likely to question. A shortened descriptor of 10 characters or fewer survives intact.

Visa allows its own wording on that charge, such as End Trial, and marks it optional, but it does require every online charge to carry a customer service phone number, website or email. Our guide to statement descriptors covers both fields.

Teams that build their own reminder have one catch to avoid. Stripe's customer.subscription.trial_will_end event fires 3 days before the trial ends by default, which satisfies Mastercard and misses Visa. Set the Trial ending events setting to 7 days if it accepts that value, since Stripe's documentation doesn't list the options, or use the hosted email.

On other billing platforms, look for the same three things: a trial reminder you can time to 7 days, a receipt for every renewal, and a cancel link in both. Where a setting is missing, the rules still apply. Stripe says the same of its own platform: if you don't use its settings, you're still responsible for complying with the requirements.

What happens if you skip the trial reminder?

On Visa, you lose one of the two proofs its rules name for answering a free-trial dispute. On Mastercard, the risk is a fine through your acquirer rather than a lost dispute.

A customer who says a trial converted without warning can dispute the charge under Visa reason code 13.5, Misrepresentation. That code covers online purchases of merchandise or digital goods made through a trial, introductory offer or promotion when the customer "was not clearly advised of further Transactions." To answer it on those grounds, Visa's rules name two proofs together: the customer expressly agreed to future charges at signup, and you notified them at least 7 days before the charge. Our 13.5 guide lists the other ways to respond and the full evidence.

Visa classes apps as digital goods, so an app like Maya's is covered. The dispute rule doesn't name services, so if you sell software as a service, send the reminder anyway: Visa's 7-day reminder rule for recurring charges applies to you either way.

Mastercard enforces its reminder rule differently. Its guidance says the subscription standards "do not change chargeback liability or disputes," and it enforces them by assessing the acquirer responsible for your account instead.

Whatever the network, a dispute still counts toward Visa's VAMP and Mastercard's Excessive Chargeback Program, win or lose. The reminder's real job is to stop the dispute from being filed at all.

Do annual subscriptions need a renewal reminder?

Yes, for Mastercard cards. Any subscription billed every six months or less often needs an electronic reminder 7 to 30 days before each charge, with the subscription terms and how to cancel.

Mastercard adds two details that templates miss. The subject line must say the email is about upcoming charges; Mastercard's example is "Important Information About Upcoming Charges to Your Account." The message must also be separate from your marketing emails.

Visa's rule is narrower. Outside Europe, its reminder rule is tied to trials and promotional prices ending, and in Europe it also applies when more than 6 months have passed since the last charge. In practice, send the renewal reminder to every annual customer: sorting customers by card brand saves nothing, and Europe's Visa rule needs one anyway.

A price increase is a trigger of its own for free-trial businesses. Visa requires written notice of the new terms at least 7 days before the first charge on them, and Mastercard requires written notice at least 7 days before revised billing terms take effect.

On Stripe, renewal reminders come from the Send emails about upcoming renewals setting, timed by the Upcoming renewal events days in your billing settings, and they go only to subscriptions charged automatically. Pick a number between 7 and 30 to cover Mastercard's window for annual plans. Stripe's documentation doesn't show the reminder's subject line, so check that it names the upcoming charge.

Do you have to send a receipt after every subscription charge?

For Visa cards, yes. Visa requires a receipt at the time of every charge you start yourself, which includes every renewal. Mastercard only recommends one, unless you bill free trials or have been in its chargeback monitoring programs for four months or more.

Older summaries of Mastercard's rules still list it as required for everyone. Mastercard made a receipt after every charge a requirement for all subscription businesses in September 2022, then cut it back to a recommendation the next month. A receipt stays required for free-trial billing, and for merchants flagged as an Excessive Chargeback Merchant, a High Excessive Chargeback Merchant or an Excessive Fraud Merchant for four months or more. Mastercard counts an email or a text message as a receipt, but not a notification inside your own app.

Visa's emailed receipts have format rules too. The subject line must carry your name as it appears on the customer's statement and say the email is a receipt. The receipt must stay available for at least 120 days, and a link must go straight to it. For a free-trial signup, the receipt must also show the trial length, the amounts and dates, and a way to cancel online or by text.

On Stripe, receipts aren't emailed until you turn them on. Stripe creates a receipt for every successful payment, renewals included, but emails it only when Successful payments is switched on in your customer email settings.

What should the reminder and receipt emails say?

Each email has one job, and its subject line is where the rules look first. The three below meet both networks' wording rules; swap in your own name, price and dates.

How must customers be able to cancel?

Online, if they signed up online. Visa requires a simple way to cancel and, for online sign-ups, at least an online one. Mastercard requires an online or electronic method, which it compares to unsubscribing from an email, or clear instructions that are easy to find online, such as a Manage subscription link on your home page.

Free-trial businesses have two more steps on Mastercard: a direct link to online cancellation on the website where the customer signed up, and a written confirmation within 7 days of the cancellation. Mastercard's rules also bar delivering under an agreement the customer or their bank has canceled. On Stripe, turn on Subscription management in your billing email settings so every billing email carries a Manage subscription link.

Visa changed the cancellation dispute this year. Since April 18, 2026, a dispute under reason code 13.2, Canceled Recurring, is invalid when the customer canceled after the date of the charge. A timestamped cancellation log can now end that dispute on its own.

Can customers stop a subscription from their banking app?

In 13 European countries, yes, and Asia-Pacific is next. Since April 18, 2026, Visa has required debit card issuers with more than 250,000 active consumer cards in those countries to let customers see and stop recurring payments in their banking app.

Visa's list is Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia and the UK. From April 24, 2027, the rule extends to card issuers across Asia-Pacific, without the debit-card limit, except in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Mongolia, Nepal, South Korea and Taiwan. The US has no such rule, but Visa's Enhanced Subscription Manager, offered to North American banks from summer 2026, gives banks that adopt it an in-app view of subscriptions with a cancel option.

A customer who stops payments from their banking app leaves a code on your next charge. Under Visa's banking-app rule, the bank declines it with R1 (Stop all future payments) or R3 (Stop all merchants); R0 (Stop payment order) is Visa's third stop code. Stripe reports R0, R1 and R3 as stop_payment_order, revocation_of_authorization and revocation_of_all_authorizations, and Mastercard uses merchant advice code 21, Payment Cancellation. Visa's rules say a merchant must never resubmit for that card, and Mastercard's say not to resubmit. Visa also requires the bank to tell the customer they may still need to cancel with you, so treat the decline as the customer leaving: stop charging that card, and email to confirm whether they meant to cancel.

What should a subscription business check this week?

Seven checks cover both networks.

1. Checkout. The price, interval and trial terms next to the card field, with a checkbox or button to accept.
2. Confirmation. An email right after signup with the terms and how to cancel.
3. Trial reminder. One reminder 7 days before the trial ends, or two (7 or more days out and 3 to 7 days out), each with the amount, the date and a cancel link.
4. Renewal reminder. Sent 7 to 30 days before every annual or semiannual charge, with a subject line about the upcoming charge and no marketing.
5. Receipts. One for every renewal, with your statement name and the word receipt in the subject line, and a cancel link. On Stripe, that is the Successful payments setting.
6. Cancel online. A Manage subscription link on your home page and in every email. On Stripe, that is the Subscription management setting.
7. Stop codes. Treat R0, R1, R3 and Mastercard's code 21 as the customer leaving, and never retry them.

FAQ

Rules checked against Visa's Core Rules and Visa Product and Service Rules (April 2026), Visa's Merchant Data Standards Manual (April 2026), Mastercard's Transaction Processing Rules (June 2026) and subscription FAQ, Visa's Enhanced Subscription Manager announcement, and Stripe's trial, customer email, receipt and decline code documentation. Last reviewed 21 October 2026.