Six groups of merchants are refused by the card itself, so a payment there always declines, whatever your balance: gambling and betting; crypto purchases and money transfer; cash advances; fuel pumps, transit and taxis; dating services and telemarketing; and stored value cards and money orders. Fuel pumps, transit and taxis are blocked because they authorise one amount and charge another, which a card that spends only its loaded balance cannot cover.

A decline in a blocked category is free: the issuer's decline fee does not apply, and your activity shows that the category is blocked, so there is no point retrying. ATM withdrawals are not possible either, because a cash machine needs a PIN and a virtual card has none.

Every merchant has a merchant category code (MCC). These are the codes blocked on cards from our main card issuer; cards issued before 21 October 2026 block all of them except 7800, 9406 and 9754. No merchant outside them is blocked by the card. A merchant's name does not always match its code: the block follows the code the merchant uses, which you can look up with our MCC lookup. The list can change as we add card issuers.

CodeMerchant category
4111Local and commuter transit
4121Taxis and limousines
4829Money transfers
5541Service stations
5542Automated fuel dispensers
5962Direct marketing: travel services
5963Door-to-door sales
5966Outbound telemarketing
5967Inbound teleservices
5972Stamp and coin stores
6010Manual cash disbursements
6011ATM cash withdrawals
6012Financial institutions: merchandise and services
6050Quasi-cash: financial institutions
6051Quasi-cash: foreign currency, money orders and crypto
6211Securities brokers and dealers
6540Stored value card purchase and loading
7273Dating services
7800Government-owned lotteries
7801Online casinos
7802Horse and dog racing
7911Dance halls, studios and schools
7995Betting, lottery tickets and casino chips
9223Bail and bond payments
9406Government-owned lotteries in some countries
9754Horse and dog racing, and non-sport internet gaming