MCC Lookup

What an MCC is

A Merchant Category Code is a four-digit number the card networks assign to a business, describing what it sells. Every card transaction carries one, and it is set by the merchant's acquiring bank — not by you, and not by the card.

It decides more than it looks like it should: which rewards a card earns, how a transaction is classified for tax, whether it counts as a cash advance, and — most relevant here — whether a card is allowed to pay at all.

MCC is the usual reason a working card is declined

When a card is declined at a merchant that ought to accept it, and the balance is fine and the number is correct, the MCC is normally the answer. Issuers block whole categories rather than individual merchants, so the decline has nothing to do with that shop specifically.

The categories blocked most widely are the cash-like ones — money transfer, quasi-cash, stored-value loading — and gambling. Search for a code below and the result says whether it falls in one of those.

The card decides, and so does the merchant

Two things can go wrong at once. A merchant may be registered under a category your card blocks, or under a category that surprises you — a marketplace selling everything under one code, or a subscription billed through a payment aggregator rather than under the brand you recognise. The MCC on the transaction is the merchant's, and there is no way to choose a different one.

Restrictions vary by issuer and by card programme, so treat the flags below as the common pattern rather than as a rule that applies to any particular card.

Descriptions from US IRS and USDA publications, compiled by mcc-codes.