Level 3 credit card processing: data, rates, and savings

Level 3 credit card processing is the practice of sending detailed invoice data, line by line, along with a business-to-business card payment. When a buyer pays with a corporate, purchasing, fleet, or government card, the card networks offer lower interchange rates on transactions that carry that detail. The data helps the buyer's organization track and audit what it bought, and the networks reward merchants who send it. For a supplier taking large card payments, the gap is close to a full percentage point on Visa's current schedule.

It also got more complicated in 2025 and 2026, when Visa rebuilt its program. If business buyers pay you large invoices by card, it's worth an hour to understand where the money is now.

What do Level 1, 2, and 3 data mean?

They're tiers of detail attached to a card transaction, and each level builds on the one below it.

The Level 3 examples come from the federal government's own card program: the GSA SmartPay 3 master contract says Level 3 data includes unit cost, quantities, unit of measure, product codes, product descriptions, ship-to and ship-from ZIP codes, and freight, and it describes sales tax entered at the point of sale as Level II data capture. Stripe's CEDP explainer sums up the two enhanced tiers the same way: Level 2 is sales tax information and Level 3 is product information, on eligible commercial cards.

One naming trap to know about: Mastercard's small-business rate table labels its card tiers "Level 1 / Business Core" through "Level 5" (Mastercard). Those are card program levels based on the card, not data levels. When a processor quotes "Level 3," make sure you both mean the same thing.

Which cards and businesses benefit from Level 3?

Enhanced-data programs apply to commercial cards: corporate, purchasing, fleet, and business cards, including government cards. A consumer rewards card gets no data discount, however much detail you send.

Government buyers care about this. GSA says all SmartPay purchase cards are centrally billed accounts, paid directly to the bank by the government, and its SmartPay FAQ tells merchants that providing Level 3 data makes them more attractive to agencies, because the data helps agencies keep track of their purchases more accurately. GSA's fleet card training adds that Level 3 data allows for better fraud monitoring. If you sell to federal agencies, whether in Washington, DC or anywhere else, line-item data is part of being easy to buy from.

The businesses that gain the most are suppliers whose customers pay invoices with commercial cards: distributors, manufacturers, wholesalers, office and IT suppliers, contractors that bill other businesses, and B2B service firms. Our page on B2B payment processing covers the wider setup for those businesses.

Your card mix decides the value. If 5% of your volume is commercial cards, Level 3 won't move your statement much. If 60% is, it may be the biggest lever you have.

How much does Level 3 data lower interchange?

It qualifies the sale for a cheaper interchange program. Interchange is the fee set by the card network and paid to the bank that issued the card, and Visa and Mastercard publish their US rates. Interchange rates are national, so the figures below apply to suppliers anywhere in the US.

The Visa rows come from the Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees with rates effective April 18, 2026. The Mastercard rows come from its 2026 to 2027 US interchange schedule, effective April 17, 2026. Both networks also list large-ticket programs with a lower percentage and a $35 fixed fee, so ask your processor which of your transactions qualify for those.

A worked example

Say you're an industrial supplier in Columbus, Ohio, and a customer pays an $8,000 invoice over the phone with a Visa purchasing card.

• Without qualifying data, the keyed sale falls in Commercial Card Not Present: 2.70% of $8,000 plus $0.10, or $216.10.
• With qualifying Level 3 data, it falls in Commercial Product 3: 1.75% of $8,000 plus $0.10, or $140.10.
• The interchange difference is $76.00. Subtract Visa's 0.05% enhanced-data fee ($4.00, covered below) and you save $72.00 on that invoice.

Twenty invoices like that a month is $1,440 in savings, or $17,280 a year.

Run the same $8,000 invoice on a Mastercard large-market commercial credit card and the numbers shift, but the pattern holds: Data Rate II costs $200.10 and Data Rate III costs $152.10, a $48.00 difference. Even without enhanced data, how you take the payment matters. On Visa, the same purchasing card run as a card-present sale is $200.10 instead of $216.10 keyed, because Commercial Card Present is 2.50% + $0.10.

Those figures are interchange only. On interchange-plus pricing, a lower interchange rate lowers your bill directly. On a flat rate, it lowers your processor's cost, not yours, unless your contract passes it through. Our comparison of interchange-plus vs. flat-rate pricing explains why that matters here.

What changed at Visa in 2025 and 2026?

Visa rebuilt its enhanced-data program, now called the Commercial Enhanced Data Program, or CEDP. The timeline below is according to processor documentation, mainly PayPal's merchant guide to CEDP and Stripe's support article, so confirm the details with your own processor:

• April 2025: CEDP launched to review the Level 3 data merchants send, along with a 5 basis point (0.05%) program fee charged per transaction when the CEDP flag is present and Visa reviews the transaction.
• October 2025: Product 3 rates replaced Visa's Level III program. PayPal's table shows the corporate and purchasing rate moving from 1.90% + $0.10 under Level III to 1.75% + $0.10 under Product 3.
• November 2025: Stripe reports that Visa paused verifying new businesses for CEDP. Transactions can still qualify on a per-transaction basis, and PayPal describes qualifying transactions receiving the preferred rate through a lagged interchange process.
• April 2026: Level 2 interchange incentives ended. Visa's own April 18, 2026 schedule lists only a fuel-specific Level II program, at 2.20% + $0.10.

What that means in practice:

• On Visa, sending only Level 2 data no longer earns a lower rate outside that fuel program. Mastercard's April 2026 schedule still lists a Data Rate II program.
• Data quality matters more than it used to. CEDP exists to review the line items merchants send, so send the real invoice lines, not generic or repeated placeholders.
• Budget for the fee. PayPal says it passes the 5 basis point fee through to its interchange-plus merchants as a network fee, so expect to see it on your statement.

Which data fields does Level 3 require?

The exact list depends on your processor and gateway, but plan to supply, for each line item, the fields GSA lists: product code, product description, quantity, unit of measure, and unit cost, along with freight and the ship-to and ship-from ZIP codes. Summary fields such as the sales tax amount ride along at the invoice level.

Where the data comes from matters more than the field list. If your invoices live in accounting software or an ERP, the cleanest setup sends the line items from the invoice to the payment automatically. Retyping line items into a payment screen invites errors, and with CEDP reviewing data quality, errors cost money.

How to ask a processor whether they support Level 3

Use these questions, and ask for answers in writing:

1. Do you support Level 2 and Level 3 data on Visa and Mastercard, and through which channels: virtual terminal, gateway, invoices, or terminals?
2. Can line items flow automatically from my invoicing or accounting software?
3. Is my business verified under Visa's CEDP? If not, how do qualifying transactions get the Product 3 rate after the fact?
4. Do you pass the 5 basis point CEDP fee through at cost, and when exactly is it charged?
5. Am I on interchange-plus pricing, so the savings show up on my statement?
6. Can you show me which transactions qualified for Product 3 or Data Rate III last month, and which downgraded?
7. Do you charge anything extra per transaction for enhanced data?

If a processor can't answer the sixth question with a report, you won't be able to tell whether you're getting the rate you're paying for. Your statement lists interchange categories by card type, and our guide to reading a merchant statement shows where to look.

A Level 3 setup checklist

If the numbers work, set it up in this order:

1. Measure first. Pull three months of statements and total your commercial card volume by network.
2. Check your pricing model. Without interchange-plus or a pass-through clause, the savings stay with your processor.
3. Map your invoice data. Confirm every invoice carries product codes, descriptions, quantities, units, and unit costs that match what you actually sold.
4. Pick the channel. Decide whether card payments arrive through a gateway tied to your accounting system, a payment link on the invoice, or keyed entry, and send line items through whichever one carries most of your commercial volume.
5. Test with real transactions. Run a few live commercial card payments and confirm on the next statement that they landed in Product 3 or Data Rate III.
6. Watch the fee line. The CEDP fee should appear at 0.05% of flagged Visa volume, with no extra markup unless your contract says so.
7. Review quarterly. Interchange schedules change, and Visa's program has already changed several times since it launched in April 2025.

When isn't Level 3 worth the effort?

Sometimes the honest answer is "not yet." Level 3 tends not to pay off when:

• Commercial cards are a small share of your card volume.
• Your tickets are small. The savings scale with the sale: on a $150 invoice, a 0.95-point difference is about $1.43, before the 0.05% fee.
• You're on flat-rate pricing that doesn't pass interchange savings through.
• Your invoices don't hold clean line-item data, and fixing that would cost more than you'd save.
• Your buyers would happily pay by bank transfer. On big invoices, ACH can beat even the best card rate; we compare the two in ACH vs. credit card.

Next step

Before you pay for a Level 3 integration, find out how much of your volume is commercial cards and what it costs you now. Send us a recent statement for a free statement review, and we'll show your commercial card volume and the interchange categories it's landing in. You can also contact us to talk through B2B payments, including invoices and payment links sent from a virtual terminal.