Most merchants get their VAMP number wrong before they ever compare it with a threshold — they divide chargebacks by all sales, or they count each fraud case once, or they use the wrong month's transactions. Visa's formula does none of those things. This guide is deliberately narrow: it covers how the VAMP ratio is computed, what the merchant line is in each region, what the acquirer lines are and are not, what happens when a line is crossed, and what moves the number. For how VAMP compares with Mastercard's ECM/HECM, the signal-based SMMP and the GMAP floors from 2027, read the companion merchant monitoring programs guide — this guide does not repeat that comparison.
The formula, with worked examples
The VAMP ratio is (TC40 fraud reports + TC15 non-fraud disputes) divided by settled card-not-present transactions (TC05), expressed as a percentage — count-based, not dollar-weighted. Three details in that one sentence cause most of the confusion, so take them in order.
First, the numerator adds two different reports. TC40 is a fraud report — an early fraud warning that may never become a chargeback. TC15 is a non-fraud dispute. Visa adds them together, so the ratio Visa computes can run higher than your raw chargeback ratio, which counts disputes only.
Second, a single transaction can count twice. When a fraud report later becomes a dispute, it enters the numerator once as a TC40 and again as a TC15. That double-count is how the formula works, not a mistake in your spreadsheet — fraud-heavy merchants feel it most, because their fraud cases are the ones that appear in both reports.
Third, the denominator is card-not-present settled transactions only. Card-present volume — in-store taps and chips — does not enter the VAMP ratio at all. If your processor dashboard reports one blended transaction count, split it before you compute anything: a denominator padded with card-present sales understates your VAMP ratio and flatters you into inaction.
Worked example 1 — standard region, over the line. A merchant has 900 TC40 fraud reports and 700 TC15 disputes in a month, over 100,000 settled card-not-present transactions. Numerator: 900 + 700 = 1,600. Ratio: 1,600 / 100,000 = 1.6%. The standard-region line is 1.5% with 1,500 events — both conditions are met, so the merchant Excessive threshold is crossed on these figures. Note the headroom view: at 100,000 settled transactions the most events carriable under 1.5% is 1,499, so this merchant is 101 events over the line.
Worked example 2 — same ratio, no trip. The same 1.6% ratio on only 1,200 events (say 600 + 600 over 75,000 settled transactions) does not cross the threshold, because the 1,500 count gate is not met. The ratio alone never enrolls anyone — and that is precisely why a growing merchant should watch the count gate approaching, not just the percentage.
Worked example 3 — CEMEA. A merchant in CEMEA has 220 events over 10,000 settled transactions: 220 / 10,000 = 2.2%, exactly on the CEMEA ratio line, with the 150-event count gate met. Whether the threshold is crossed then turns on the third condition, the USD 75,000 fraud-and-dispute amount: at USD 75,000 or more it is crossed; below it, it is not. Run your own figures in the VAMP Threshold Checker, which keeps that amount gate separate instead of assuming it.
The thresholds by region
Since April 1, 2026 the standard-region merchant Excessive line is 1.5% with 1,500 events, and the CEMEA line is 2.2% with 150 events plus USD 75,000 — and knowing which region you are in matters more than knowing either number alone. A 1.8% ratio is over the line in the US and under it in CEMEA.
Visa region
Merchant Excessive ratio
Count gate
Amount gate
US, Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America & Caribbean
1.5%
1,500 events / month
None
CEMEA (Central Europe, Middle East and Africa)
2.2%
150 events / month
USD 75,000
How the standard line moved: VAMP replaced the separate Visa Dispute Monitoring Program and Visa Fraud Monitoring Program on April 1, 2025 with one combined ratio. The standard-region merchant line started at 2.2% and dropped to 1.5% on April 1, 2026; Latin America and the Caribbean were already at 1.5%. A ratio that was comfortable in 2025 can therefore be over the line now with nothing about the business having changed — do not plan around the old 2.2% figure unless you are in CEMEA.
A source caveat, stated plainly because it affects CEMEA merchants directly: some shorter summaries list 1,500 as the CEMEA count gate. The detailed regional tables in the program guides this page relies on give 150 events plus USD 75,000 for CEMEA, and the checker follows those detailed tables. If your acquirer tells you otherwise, your acquirer's figure governs your account — ask it for the CEMEA criteria in writing.
The acquirer tiers: portfolio lines, not merchant lines
The 0.5% and 0.7% VAMP figures are acquirer-facing, portfolio-level lines — Visa scores an acquirer's whole portfolio at Above Standard from 0.5% and Excessive from 0.7% — and they are the most misquoted numbers in VAMP coverage. They are not merchant thresholds, and no merchant "trips" them individually.
Why they still matter to a merchant: VAMP moved accountability upstream, so an acquirer whose portfolio sits in the Above Standard or Excessive band is itself under a remediation obligation, and it discharges that obligation through its merchants — tighter limits, reserves, slower payouts, or a required plan for its highest-event accounts. A merchant at 0.8% is under the 1.5% merchant line and can still be the account its acquirer acts on first, because that merchant is what pushes the portfolio over. The retired VDMP lines (Early Warning 0.65% / 75, Standard 0.9% / 100) are history, not thresholds to plan around — although 0.9% remains a sensible internal alarm, because it is where many acquirers start paying attention.
What happens at each tier
When a merchant crosses the Excessive threshold, the published pattern is a remediation plan, per-dispute assessments, and monthly review — and the plan, not the fine, is the part that decides how long the merchant stays in. The acquirer is required to put the plan in place, and the merchant's job inside it is to show what changes the inflow of events, not to dispute the count after the fact.
This guide states no assessment amount, deliberately: published per-event figures vary by source, and the binding schedule is the one in your merchant agreement. Any page that quotes you a single VAMP fine figure without that caveat is simplifying past the point of usefulness — ask your acquirer for the schedule that applies to your account, and budget from that, not from a blog figure.
At the acquirer level, the pattern is the same shape one level up: an Above Standard portfolio carries a remediation obligation, and an Excessive portfolio carries the heavier schedule. The practical consequence for a merchant is timing — an acquirer under portfolio pressure will not wait for your merchant tier to trip before it acts on your account.
What counts, what is excluded, and what does not help
What counts is everything filed: TC40 fraud reports even when they never become chargebacks, and TC15 disputes from the moment they are filed. What can be excluded, depending on timing, is narrower than merchants usually hope: disputes resolved through pre-dispute solutions (such as RDR and CDRN) and TC40 fraud that qualifies for Compelling Evidence 3.0. Both exclusions turn on timing and on the data travelling through the acquirer's systems — if the evidence or the pre-dispute resolution does not land in the right extract window, the event stays in the count.
What does not help, however satisfying it feels: winning disputes. Representment recovers the money but leaves the ratio entry in place, because Visa counts events as filed. Refunding a customer after a dispute has posted does not remove it either. The only moves that lower the ratio are moves that stop an event from posting in the first place — which is why the remediation pointers below are all about prevention, not about fighting cases harder.
Remediation pointers that actually move the numerator
Work the numerator in the order merchants usually feel it, and measure each change by the event count it removes, not by the revenue it recovers. First, fix the billing descriptor so customers recognise the charge — unrecognised charges are the cheapest disputes to prevent and the most common reason-code cluster in subscription and trial businesses.
Second, turn on pre-chargeback alerts so a refund replaces a dispute before it posts — this is the one lever that both removes an event from the VAMP count (through the pre-dispute exclusion) and saves the representment fight. Third, make cancellation painless and send renewal reminders, so customers who want out leave through your door instead of their bank's. Fourth, read reason codes monthly and fix the product, page or traffic source behind each cluster — a fraud cluster points at screening and authentication, a "not as described" cluster points at the listing, a subscription cluster points at the checkout and renewal flow.
Finally, get your acquirer's own VAMP count in writing, every month, and reconcile it against yours. The gap between the two numbers — fraud reports you never saw as chargebacks, exclusions that did or did not land — is where surprises live, and it is cheaper to find in a monthly email than in a remediation plan. If you only want your own position checked, the VAMP Threshold Checker runs the formula, the region thresholds and the headroom math on one month's figures.
Run your own numbers
Your VAMP ratio, your region's threshold, and your headroom before the line — in under a minute.
Since April 1, 2026, a merchant in the US, Canada, Europe, Asia-Pacific or Latin America and the Caribbean trips Visa VAMP Excessive when its ratio of TC40 fraud reports plus TC15 non-fraud disputes to settled card-not-present transactions reaches 1.5% and it has at least 1,500 fraud reports and disputes in the month. In CEMEA the line is 2.2% with 150 events plus USD 75,000.
VAMP ratio = (TC40 fraud reports + TC15 non-fraud disputes) divided by settled card-not-present transactions (TC05), count-based, not dollar-weighted. A fraud report that later becomes a dispute is counted twice.
No. 0.5% Above Standard and 0.7% Excessive are acquirer-facing, portfolio-level lines. They explain why an acquirer may act on a merchant before the 1.5% merchant line trips, but they are never a merchant's own trip line.
No. Visa counts events as filed. Winning recovers the money but leaves the ratio entry in place. Only pre-dispute solutions and qualifying Compelling Evidence 3.0 fraud can be excluded, depending on timing.
In the published pattern the acquirer is required to put a remediation plan in place and per-dispute assessments apply to excessive merchants, reviewed monthly. The exact assessment schedule sits in the merchant agreement — this guide states no fee amount — so confirm it with your acquirer.
Sources (checked October 28, 2026): This site's merchant-monitoring-program-checker.html and chargeback-ratio-calculator.html (VAMP 1.5% / 1,500, TC40 + TC15 over settled card-not-present transactions, acquirer tiers 0.5% / 0.7% as acquirer-level — no mismatch found); Chargeflow — Visa VAMP rules guide and Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program guide (formula, 1.5% from Apr 1, 2026, CEMEA 2.2% with 150 events and USD 75,000, acquirer tiers, pre-dispute and Compelling Evidence 3.0 exclusions); Dodo Payments — Visa VAMP Explained (regional table, timeline Jun 1, 2025 → Apr 1, 2026, acquirer tiers); Chargebacks911 — Visa chargeback threshold and VAMP program pages (1.5% / 1,500 standard, acquirer 0.5% / 0.7%; its summary table's 1,500 for CEMEA noted against the detailed tables' 150 + $75,000, detailed tables followed); Justt — Visa VAMP threshold changes April 2026 (1.5% drop, CEMEA stays 2.2%, acquirer tiers portfolio-level); Redo — VAMP thresholds for 2026 (150 bps standard, 220 bps CEMEA, TC05 denominator). Visa's rulebooks are not public; figures are as published in Visa's Acquirer Monitoring Program fact sheet as summarised by these guides, and can change. No fee amounts are stated in this guide.
General information only — not financial or legal advice. Thresholds vary by region, acquirer and merchant agreement. This guide is a self-check aid, not a Visa determination. Verify your position with your acquirer.
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