Credit card decline codes: meanings and what to do

Credit card decline codes are the two-character response codes that come back when a card issuer turns down a sale. Your terminal or checkout sends the authorization request, the card network carries it to the bank that issued the card, and the issuer answers with a code. Visa publishes its list on the Visa Developer Center. There, 51 is "Not sufficient funds," 54 is "Expired card or expiration date is missing," and 05 is the famously vague "Do not honor."

The code is worth reading because it tells you what to do next. Some declines are a typo you can fix in ten seconds. Some mean the customer needs another card. A few mean you should stop and never run that card again. Below is a reference table of common codes, what each one means for your business, and what to say at the counter, followed by the retry rules Visa and Mastercard publish. Code lists and rules cited here were checked in October 2026.

How do credit card decline codes work?

A decline code is the issuer's answer to your authorization request, and it arrives in the same few seconds an approval would. Every card sale makes the same trip:

1. The customer taps, dips, or types in a card.
2. Your terminal or checkout sends the request to your processor.
3. The processor routes it through the card network to the issuer.
4. The issuer checks the account, the amount, and its fraud rules, then approves or declines with a response code.
5. The answer comes back the same way, and your terminal shows the code or a message your processor has mapped to it.

That last step is why one decline can look different on two systems. One terminal prints "51," another says "Insufficient funds," and an online checkout just says "Card declined." Processors translate codes, and Mastercard sends some of its guidance in a separate field. Its gateway documentation says the issuer or network can add a merchant advice code, returned in the merchantAdviceCode field, with a recommended action. If your reports show only text, ask your processor for the raw code behind each message.

Visa has been pushing issuers to say why they decline. Its rules group authorization response codes into four categories and require issuers to send descriptive response codes that identify the reason. Generic answers still happen, as anyone who has seen a 05 knows. Our guide to the do not honor decline covers that one in depth, so we won't repeat it here.

What do common credit card decline codes mean?

These are common codes on Visa's list, each with Visa's own description from its developer documentation. The last two columns are our advice, not network rules. Other networks and processors keep their own lists and wording, so check your processor's documentation for non-Visa cards.

One code on Visa's list isn't a decline at all. Code 10 is "Partial approval": the issuer approved part of the amount, for example on a prepaid card whose balance is short of the total, and you collect the rest another way. Our guide to partial authorization covers how to handle it at the register.

The table sorts into three groups, and each group gets a different response from you.

Which decline codes mean "fix it and try again"?

Codes 13, 14, 54, 55, N7, 91, and 1A often point to something you or the customer can correct: a mistyped number, a wrong expiration date, a fumbled PIN, a security code read off the wrong card, or a network hiccup. One careful retry is reasonable. A second identical failure is your cue to ask for another card.

Most of these show up on keyed and online sales, where people type. A bike shop in Denver taking a $640 repair deposit by phone in a virtual terminal gets a 54. The clerk reads the date back, finds the customer gave the old card's expiration, fixes it, and the second try goes through. That's the whole point of reading the code: thirty seconds instead of a lost sale.

Three of them deserve care:

• N7 (CVV2 failure). Confirm the code once. If a different security code "works" a minute later on the same card number, look hard at that order before you ship it.
• 91 (issuer unavailable). The issuer, or the switch between you and it, couldn't respond in time. The customer didn't do anything wrong. Wait a few minutes. If every card from every bank is failing, the problem is closer to you, so call your processor.
• 1A (additional authentication). The issuer wants extra proof that the person paying is the cardholder. Online, ask your processor whether your checkout can retry with 3-D Secure; our guide to 3-D Secure explains how that step works.

Which decline codes mean "ask for another card"?

Codes 01, 05, 12, 46, 51, 57, 59, 61, 62, and 65 are the issuer's decision about this card right now. You can't fix them from your side, and re-running the card rarely changes the answer. Offer another way to pay, and suggest the customer call their bank if they want to sort it out.

A few practical notes:

• 51 is the most fixable for the customer. A smaller amount, a different card, or a payment later in the week often works.
• 01 and 59 are both invitations for the cardholder to call. The bank may clear a block on the spot, and then one more attempt is fair.
• 61 and 65 are limits. A customer buying a $3,000 sofa may be over a limit they didn't know about, and splitting the payment across two cards, a split tender sale, can solve it.
• 46 on a stored card means the account is gone. Stop billing it and ask for new details.

The thing to avoid is turning a decline into an approval by force. Visa has a dispute condition, 11.2 Declined Authorization, for sales completed after a decline. Keying in an approval code nobody gave you, or pushing the sale through offline, turns a lost sale into a lost sale plus a chargeback. Our guide on how a chargeback works covers what happens next.

Which decline codes mean "stop"?

Codes 04, 41, and 43 tell you the issuer wants the card out of circulation. Don't retry, don't confront the customer, and don't try to play detective. Say the bank declined it and ask for another payment method. If something about the situation makes staff uneasy, they should follow your store's safety policy rather than argue at the counter.

Subscriptions and stored cards have their own stop signals:

Visa's Stop Payment Service documentation says merchants aren't expected to resubmit an authorization after an R0, R1, or R3 decline. R0 and R1 come through Visa's stop payment service, so the stop was placed at the cardholder's bank, not with you. Retrying won't collect the money, and billing them some other way without talking to them first invites a dispute.

How many times can you retry a declined card?

It depends on the decline category, and fewer is better. Visa doesn't permit a reattempt when a decline falls in its "issuer will never approve" category, under its rules on declined transaction resubmission. For Category 2 ("issuer cannot approve at this time") and Category 4 (generic codes), Visa's merchant business news digest says 15 retries in 30 days are permitted. Your processor can tell you which category each code it receives falls into.

Mastercard adds advice codes that override guesswork. Its gateway documentation lists 02 as "Cannot approve at this time, try again later," 03 as "Do not try again," and 24 and 25 as retry after 1 hour and retry after 24 hours. When one of those comes back, follow it, whatever the response code says.

Our rule of thumb for a one-time sale: one retry, and only after something changed, such as a corrected detail or a call to the bank. For subscriptions, space retries out over days rather than hours, and stop at the first "do not try again" signal. Our guide to recurring billing lays out a retry schedule that stays well inside Visa's limits.

Here's how that plays out for a meal-kit company in Minneapolis billing 2,000 subscribers on the first of the month. Say 80 renewals decline. The ones with 54 or Mastercard advice code 01 get an email asking for updated card details, with no retry until the customer responds. The 51s get retried on day 3 and day 7. The R1s get billing switched off and a note from customer service. That's three different responses to three different codes, and it keeps the company far from 15 attempts on any card.

What should you tell a customer when a card is declined?

Keep it short, private, and neutral. The customer doesn't need the code, and you don't want to guess at the reason out loud. "Lost" and "stolen" codes are the ones to be most careful with, because the person in front of you may be the cardholder whose old card was reported.

Online, a field-level hint helps for fixable codes. "Please check the expiration date" after a 54 saves a support ticket. Don't show raw codes, and never say "fraud" on screen. And cap how many attempts one session can make: a checkout that lets anyone try card after card invites card testing. Clearo's online payments include AVS, CVV checks, and velocity rules that limit repeated attempts.

What does a spike in decline codes mean?

One decline is about a customer. A pattern is about you. Pull a report of declines by code every month and watch for these:

1. Lots of 14, 54, and N7 declines on small online orders from many different cards. That's the classic signature of card testing, where someone uses your checkout to find which stolen numbers work. Our guide to card testing fraud covers the response.
2. A wave of 91s across many banks at once. That points to an outage between you and the issuers. Check with your processor before you blame your terminal.
3. 51s bunched on the first of the month in a subscription business. Moving the billing date or adding a later retry can recover some of them.
4. A rise in 59s on one product or one shipping destination. Ask your processor to look at the sales the issuers are flagging.
5. Declines climbing on in-person sales. Ask your processor whether anything changed in how your transactions are sent.

These codes come from the card networks, not from state law, so they read the same for a business anywhere in the United States. If you also sell in Canada, remember that Interac debit runs on its own network, so its decline messages won't necessarily match Visa's list. Our guide to Interac explains how that network works.

Next step

Decline codes are one of the few places your processor tells you exactly what went wrong, and they're easy to ignore. If you'd like a second opinion on your decline rates, or you want a report that shows the codes behind your declines, contact us and your rep will walk through it. You can also send a recent statement for a free statement review to see what your payment processing actually costs.