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Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program (VAMP) ratio determines how Visa evaluates your risk profile. Find out where you stand and what to do next.
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Two streams converge into one ratio. One ratio decides your fate.
Every fraud notification and every chargeback merges into a single monthly metric.
Visa's risk monitoring program,
consolidated and tightened.
VAMP (Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program) is the framework Visa uses to evaluate how much fraud and how many disputes flow through every merchant and every acquirer in its network. Since April 2025, it replaced the two legacy programs (VFMP for fraud, VDMP for disputes) and merged them into a single ratio that Visa now watches monthly.
The principle is straightforward: every fraud notification (TC40) and every chargeback (TC15) you generate is added up, then divided by your total Visa e-commerce transactions. If your ratio crosses Visa's threshold, you enter the program, and the consequences scale fast.
Since October 1, 2025, enforcement is live. Merchants flagged as Excessive pay $8 per dispute in penalty fees, every month, until the ratio comes back down. And as of April 1, 2026, the threshold for being flagged Excessive in the US, EU and most regions has dropped from 2.2% to 1.5%. The bar is moving, and it's only moving in one direction.
Excessive merchant threshold (US/EU)
1.5%
Penalty feeper fraud / dispute
$8
Min. monthly eventsto enter the program
1,500
Disputes that arefriendly fraud
~75%
Evaluation cadenceby Visa
Monthly
VAMP didn't exist 18 months ago. It already runs the rules.
Two separate programs
Visa monitored fraud and disputes through two distinct frameworks ; VFMP (fraud) and VDMP (disputes) ; each with its own thresholds and reporting cadence.
VAMP launches
Visa consolidates VFMP and VDMP into a single program. New unified ratio: (TC40 + TC15) ÷ Total Visa e-commerce transactions. Transition period begins, no penalties yet.
Enforcement begins
Visa starts charging $8 per dispute for merchants flagged as Excessive. The transition period ends. Excessive threshold sits at 2.2% globally, 1.5% in LAC.
Above Standard tier for acquirers
Acquirers with ratios between 0.5% and 0.7% start paying $4 per transaction, pushing them to tighten merchant-level thresholds well below Visa's published numbers.
Threshold drops to 1.5%
The Excessive merchant threshold in the US, EU, APAC, Canada, and CEMEA falls from 2.2% to 1.5%. Many merchants who were comfortably below the line yesterday cross it overnight.
Frequently asked questions
VFMP monitored fraud and VDMP monitored disputes separately, with separate thresholds and separate reporting. VAMP consolidates both into a single ratio: (TC40 + TC15) ÷ Total Visa e-commerce transactions.
The catch: a single fraudulent transaction often generates both a TC40 (fraud notification from the issuer) and a TC15 (chargeback opened by the cardholder). Under VAMP, both count, which is why most merchants see higher ratios under the new program, even with no change in their underlying activity.
Yes - and Visa is aware of it. The current ratio formula counts every TC40 and every TC15 as separate events, even when they relate to the same underlying transaction. This is by design: Visa wants to capture fraud signals as early as possible, including the TC40 reports that didn't escalate into formal chargebacks.
Practical impact: any merchant with a meaningful share of fraud-driven chargebacks will see a mechanically higher VAMP ratio than they'd expect from chargeback data alone.
Three things happen, in escalating order:
Penalty fees. $8 USD per fraud or dispute event, charged monthly until your ratio drops below 1.5%.
Acquirer pressure. Your acquiring bank receives the same flag and will likely impose mandatory reserves, raise your processing fees, or demand immediate remediation.
Termination risk. If the ratio doesn't recover, your acquirer can, and often will, terminate the merchant account to protect their own VAMP standing. This is the most common outcome for high-risk merchants who fail to act.
Directly, no - VAMP only flags merchants with at least 1,500 fraud and dispute events per month. Below that, you stay outside the formal program.
Indirectly, yes. Acquirers are graded on their entire portfolio's VAMP ratio. Even a small merchant with a high individual ratio can drag their acquirer's average upward, which is why most acquirers now apply internal VAMP-style thresholds well below Visa's official 1.5%, sometimes as low as 1%, even for small merchants. Being technically below the program threshold doesn't protect you from your acquirer's own risk policy.
Monthly. Each calendar month is evaluated independently, there is no rolling average and no grace period. What happened in March is judged in early April; what happens this month will be judged at the start of next month.
This monthly cadence means a single bad month can trigger penalty fees, but it also means a single good month can pull you back into the safe zone. The program rewards proactive monitoring far more than it rewards averaging-out over time.