October added commercial and virtual card interchange tiers as low as 0.25%, and a new 0.10% Visa fee on embedded B2B payments. If you issue, sponsor or acquire virtual cards, these are worth mapping to your programs.
Who this is for: commercial and virtual card issuers, BIN sponsors running B2B programs, and acquirers with B2B volume.
United States
- Visa Embedded Payments Acquirer Fee. A new 0.10% network fee (also known as a scheme fee) on eligible Visa Commercial Solutions virtual card transactions used in embedded payment flows, effective in October per Fiserv.
- Mastercard Wholesale Travel and Variable Interchange Program. On October 23, new Wholesale Travel rates from 0.50% (MTS) to 2.70% (MBT, MBU, MBV), and new domestic Variable Interchange Program rates for commercial prepaid from 0.25% (VWA) to 2.45% (VWK), per J.P. Morgan. These are US rates. J.P. Morgan lists higher Wholesale Travel rates for most codes in the US territories, and Canadian Wholesale Travel rates run up to 3.00%.
- Mastercard Account Level Management. From October 28, World Elite Mastercard consumer accounts can graduate to World Elite Mastercard for Business, and some of those transactions may need commercial data, per J.P. Morgan.
Canada, October 24
- Mastercard Flex. New rates by product code: WAZ 0.35%, WBA 0.40%, WBB 0.45%, and WBC through WBK from 1.65% to 2.00% (Moneris, J.P. Morgan).
- Visa Commercial Choice. New Omni program IDs from 0.40% to 0.75%, and Commercial Choice Travel at 2.00%. Moneris says Commercial Choice virtual cards are no longer restricted by MCC.
- Visa Business Credit Standard. Up from 2.00% to 2.15%.
- Visa embedded payment charge. Processors also published Visa's 0.10% charge on select domestic and cross-border B2B virtual card transactions made through embedded payment integrations, starting November 30, before any processor's 13% tax gross-up (Fiserv Canada, J.P. Morgan).
Several of these add rate tiers for B2B and virtual card spend well below standard commercial rates, while the embedded payment fee adds a cost on the acquiring side.
What to check
- Issuers and BIN sponsors: which program and product code your virtual cards qualify under in each market, and whether any of your volume now falls into the new lower tiers.
- Acquirers: how many transactions are being billed the embedded payment fee, and whether that matches your B2B volume.
The full October tracker, by region and with sources: October 2026 Visa and Mastercard fee changes