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Each time a payment on one of your cards is declined for one of the reasons below, it counts toward your decline limit. The first decline is free. Every decline after that costs $0.75. When a card reaches the limit, the fee is charged and the card is terminated. The limit is set for your whole business, and the default is 3. You can change it from the dashboard. There is no API endpoint for it.

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Declines that count

  • Insufficient funds: the card doesn’t have enough balance for the payment.
  • Inactive card: a payment is attempted on a frozen card.
  • Reversed authorization: a payment was approved but the merchant never completed it, so it was reversed.
A successful authorization on the card resets its count to zero.

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What each limit costs

The number of charged declines is always one less than the limit. At the default limit of 3: A higher limit gives a card more room before it is terminated, but more of its declines are charged.

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Set the limit

1

Open the card decline limit

Sign in to the dashboard and go to Settings > Controls > Card decline limit. Maximum consecutive declines shows your current limit.
2

Enter a new limit

Select Edit, then enter a whole number from 2 to 11 in Maximum consecutive declines. A limit of 1 isn’t allowed.
Editing the maximum consecutive declines in dashboard settings, with an allowed range of 2 to 11
3

Save

Select Save. The new limit applies to all your active cards and to any card you create afterward.
Only the Owner, Manager, and Treasury officer roles can change the limit. Everyone else can’t change it. The decline policy can’t be turned off. The limit is the only setting.

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Who it applies to

The limit applies to every standard card on your business: both team cards and customer cards.

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Where the fees come from

Decline fees are taken from your business’s central wallet. If the wallet doesn’t have enough to cover a fee, the fee is still recorded and is settled the next time the wallet is funded. A short wallet doesn’t terminate the card.

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Terminated cards

Termination is final. A terminated card can’t be reactivated, and raising the limit doesn’t bring it back. To keep transacting, create a new card. The standard $1.00 creation fee applies.

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Track declines

Each decline fee sends a virtualcard.transaction.declined.charge webhook. Its violationCount field shows how many declines the card has reached, so you can warn the cardholder or fund the card before it hits the limit. See Fees and decline rules.