When a business pays you with a corporate, purchasing or fleet card, the card network can charge a lower interchange rate if your sale carries more detail about what was bought. That extra detail is Level 2 and Level 3 data, and sending it is what "Level 3 credit card processing" means. This guide explains what each level contains, what Visa and Mastercard require in 2026, what changed with the Visa Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP), and what a B2B seller or the platform that processes for it needs in place.
It is written for the business that accepts the card. If you are the one paying with a corporate card, none of this changes your price.
What is Level 3 data for credit cards?
Card data comes in three levels. Each one adds fields to the one below it.
| Level | What it adds | Typical fields |
|---|---|---|
| Level 1 | Basic sale data, sent on every card sale | Amount, date, merchant name and category |
| Level 2 | Order data at the header level | Sales tax amount, customer code or purchase order number, merchant tax ID |
| Level 3 | One line per item sold | Product code, item description, quantity, unit of measure, unit price, line total, commodity code, plus freight, duty, discount and ship from and destination ZIP codes |
Level 3 does not replace Level 2: a Level 3 sale carries the Level 2 header plus the line items. The issuer passes this data to the cardholder's company, which uses it to reconcile spend, enforce purchasing policy and match invoices. That is why networks charge less interchange on sales that carry it.
The names are not the same at every network. Mastercard calls its data levels Data Rate I, II and III, and uses "Level 1" to "Level 5" for something unrelated: spend tiers of its Small Business cards. Visa now calls its Level 3 rate Product 3.
Which sales qualify for Level 2 and 3 credit card processing
Level 2 and Level 3 rates apply to US commercial credit cards: corporate, purchasing, fleet and, with limits, small business cards. They matter most to:
- B2B sellers that take card payments online, by invoice or through a customer portal, where sales settle at card not present rates;
- software platforms and payment facilitators that process card payments on behalf of B2B sellers;
- sellers with large average tickets, where one point of interchange is a large amount.
They do not apply, or apply differently, to:
- consumer cards, which have no Level 2 or Level 3 rates;
- regulated commercial debit, where the Durbin cap fixes the rate regardless of data;
- airlines, car rental, lodging and restaurants, which use their own programs;
- American Express, which runs its own Level 2 and Level 3 rules and is outside this guide.
Card type is decided by the card, not by you. Your gateway or fee report tells you which sales were made with commercial cards.
Visa requirements in 2026: Product 3 and CEDP
Visa's commercial rules changed twice in a short period.
October 2025: Product 3 and CEDP. The old Corporate and Purchasing Level 3 rate became Commercial Product 3, at 1.75% + $0.10. Product 3 is only available through CEDP. Your acquirer or processor enrolls you; without enrollment there is no Product 3.
April 2026: the Level 2 rate ended. Visa's October 2026 fee table has no generic Level II rate for Corporate, Purchasing or Business cards. Only Commercial Level II Fuel remains (Visa table, pages 16 and 21). Level 2 fields are still part of every Product 3 sale, but on their own they no longer lower the Visa rate.
So for Visa, the choice today is mostly binary: a commercial card sale either qualifies for Product 3 with good Level 3 data, or it settles at a rate such as Commercial Card Not Present (2.70% + $0.10).
What CEDP checks
Visa does not publish the CEDP program guide. What is known comes from processors that implement it: CEDP checks the content of the data, not only whether the fields exist. Data can fail when:
- item descriptions are generic, such as "product" or "service";
- the description repeats your business name instead of describing the item;
- the tax amount is the same on every sale instead of being calculated per sale;
- line items do not add up to the amount charged.
Processors also describe a verification period. Visa reviews a merchant's data over time, often over a few months. Until you are verified, a sale can still qualify after review, with the rate adjusted later. Processors also report a CEDP participation fee of 0.05% on Visa sales sent with CEDP data, whether or not the sale reaches Product 3. Visa does not publish this fee in its interchange table.
Mastercard requirements in 2026: Data Rate II and III
Mastercard did not follow Visa. Its April 2026 table keeps Data Rate I, II and III and Large Ticket for corporate, purchasing and fleet cards (Mastercard table, page 8).
| Mastercard rate (Large Market Credit) | Rate | What the sale needs |
|---|---|---|
| Data Rate I | 2.70% + $0.10 | Merchant tax ID and card acceptor type, timely settlement |
| Data Rate II | 2.50% + $0.10 | Data Rate I plus sales tax and customer code |
| Data Rate III | 1.90% + $0.10 | Data Rate II plus line items |
| Standard | 2.95% + $0.10 | Sales that miss the requirements above |
Rates: Mastercard table effective April 17, 2026, page 8. Requirements: as described in acquirer documentation; Mastercard does not publish its full qualification criteria.
According to acquirer documentation:
- Data Rate II needs a sales tax amount between 0.1% and 30% of the sale, except in a list of tax exempt merchant categories.
- Data Rate III line items need product code, item description, quantity, unit of measure, extended item amount and a debit or credit indicator.
- Sales must settle within three days of authorization; Large Ticket within two.
- Business cards are not eligible for Data Rate III. The 2026 Small Business Credit table has Data Rate I and II only (Mastercard table, page 7).
Level 3 credit card processing requirements: a checklist
These are the conditions a B2B seller, or the platform processing for it, needs in place. None of them guarantees a lower rate; each one removes a common reason for a downgrade.
- Interchange++ pricing. On blended or flat pricing, the processor keeps any interchange difference. Savings from Level 3 data only reach you on Interchange++.
- A gateway that sends Level 3 data. Stripe and Adyen both accept Level 2 and Level 3 fields, each in its own format and with its own field limits.
- CEDP enrollment for Visa, done by your acquirer or processor.
- Real item descriptions and product codes, taken from your catalog or invoice, not filler text and not your business name.
- Tax calculated per sale. A fixed tax value repeated across sales is a known reason for CEDP failure.
- Line items that add up. Quantity times unit price should equal each line total, and the lines plus tax, freight and duty, minus discounts, should equal the amount charged. Some gateways reject line items that do not add up.
- Units of measure on every line.
- Timely capture and settlement, within the window your acquirer gives you.
- A way to see the result. Read your fee report for the interchange program of each commercial card sale, not only the total cost.
What happens when Level 3 data is wrong
Most gateways do not decline the payment when Level 2 or Level 3 data is invalid. Adyen, for example, drops the enhanced data or falls back to a lower level instead of refusing the sale. The payment goes through, so nobody notices, and the sale settles at a higher rate. The only trace is in the fee report, often weeks later.
That is the real cost of Level 3 credit card processing done badly: not failed payments, but commercial card volume that silently settles at Card Not Present, Data Rate I or Standard instead of Product 3 or Data Rate III. On Visa corporate cards the published gap between Card Not Present and Product 3 is 0.95 points before the CEDP fee; on Mastercard Large Market cards the gap between Data Rate I and Data Rate III is 0.80 points. For the full rate tables, see Commercial card interchange rates: Visa and Mastercard.
Check your own sales
If you accept corporate cards through Adyen or Stripe, run a free diagnostic at tierback.com. It reads your gateway fee report, finds the commercial card sales that settled above the data rates and estimates how much that cost, so you can decide where to look first.
See what last month cost you.
Upload an Adyen or Stripe fee report. The diagnostic shows the rate each commercial card sale paid and the best rate its card and MCC allow.