by Ben Dwyer International card present debit interchange categories determine the interchange rates a business will pay when accepting an international debit card in the United States.
You may also see these categories referred to as “interregional” debit.
These rates do not apply to international credit cards, which have their own categories. They also do not apply to “card-not-present” transactions of any kind – debit or credit.
- International Card Present Debit Rates
- What is regulated debit?
- International Card Present Debit Criteria
- Interregional Debit Interchange on Statements
International Card Present Debit Rates
Visa technically only lists 1 interchange rate/category for transactions that occur with international debit cards, called Interregional Regulated Debit. However, there are several different possible card types, leading to 4 total categories. All 4 refer to “regulated” debit cards, meaning they all have the same rate. Thus, the only real difference is which one you’ll see on statements.
The current categories are:
| Volume Rate | Per-Transaction Fee | |
| Interregional Visa Debit – Gold | 0.05% | $0.22 |
| Interregional Visa Debit – Signature | 0.05% | $0.22 |
| Interregional Visa Debit – Infinite | 0.05% | $0.22 |
| Interregional Visa Debit – Commercial | 0.05% | $0.22 |
The rates and fees above come directly from Visa’s website. Pricing subject to change at Visa’s discretion.
What is regulated debit?
“Regulated” debit refers to debit cards that are issued by a bank that has at least $10 billion in assets. Cards that fall under “regulated” are subject to an interchange cap of 0.05% + 22 cents per transaction. The regulated classification came about through the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd Frank Wall Street Reform Act back in 2010.
By law, regulated debit cards cannot be charged more than 0.05% and $0.22 at the interchange level. However, that doesn’t mean you’ll only pay 0.05% + 22 cents for a regulated debit transaction. Processors (who do not control interchange) can still add markups to the capped interchange cost for regulated debit transactions.
Furthermore, unregulated debit cards (those issued by smaller banks) are not subject to the interchange cap.
International Card Present Debit Criteria
In order to qualify for the categories listed above, transactions will need to meet certain requirements. For regulated interregional debit, the requirements are minimal. The transaction must:
- Take place in the United States or a U.S. territory
- Use an international debit card
If either of those criteria are not true, the transaction will not receive international card present debit rates and will instead qualify for a different interchange category. Note that “regulated” debit cards do not downgrade. They can only ever cost 0.05% + 22 cents at the interchange level. (However, your card processor can charge additional fees beyond that.)
Interregional Debit Interchange on Statements
A lot of businesses in the United States won’t see international debit transactions on statements very often, if at all. However, if you serve a lot of foreign clientele in the US, it can be more common.
Some processing statements will show interchange detail. That means the statement will list all of the interchange categories that applied to your transactions in any given month. You will typically see interchange detail on interchange plus or tiered processing statements. You will usually not see it with flat rate pricing, such as Square, PayPal, or Stripe statements.
If you have a statement with interchange detail, international debit may be spelled out completely or abbreviated / aliased.
You may see the following:
- INTLELCTDR (International Electronic Debit Reg)
- INTLCHIPDR (International Issuer Chip Debit Reg)
- INTLPREMDR (International Premium Debit Reg)
Note that this list is not exhaustive. Processors have wide discretion to label their statements as they choose. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult to keep track of all the possible names used for various interchange categories.
