Check Statements for Digital Commerce Fee Adjustments

If your business ran any card-not-present volume this spring, there’s a line item worth scrutinizing on your statements right now.

The exact phrasing depends on the processor, but it’s showing up as variations of “VS Digital Comm Fee Adj – APR-JUN 2026.” 

What exactly does this mean?

• It’s an adjustment applied to merchants that were incorrectly billed for Visa’s Digital Commerce Service Fee.
• The billing errors occurred between April 2026 and June 2026.
• Corrections are hitting statements as early as July, but other accounts may see the adjustment in August or September.

Here’s an example on an account that we reviewed:

In this case, the merchant received an $81.11 credit (meaning they were overcharged between April and June).

Why the Visa Digital Commerce Service Fee Was Billed Incorrectly

No processor has specifically said what went wrong internally. But we can make a logical assumption based on the timing.

Visa increased its Digital Commerce Service Fee on April 1, 2026.

• Domestic rate doubled
• Cross-border transactions were priced separately at a higher rate
• The fee expanded to cover several additional services

And the billing error window started in this same month. 

With a rate change and scope expansion from the network level in the same month, every acquirer had to reconfigure its billing logic to match it. In this particular case, it’s safe to assume the processor just incorrectly entered a rate higher than the increase amount. 

Seems like an honest mistake, and we’ve even seen some processors notify merchants of the error:

This notice came from Heartland/Global Payments.

It’s rare that I hand them a compliment. But they did the right thing here and pushed out corrections proactively instead of forcing merchants to find the problem on their own and claw the money back. 

Credit vs. Debit Adjustment

The adjustments we’ve seen so far have been credits. If you fall into this category, it means you were overbilled between April and June and now you’re getting your money back (as a credit against the fees you owe during the statement period it was issued, not a refund back to your bank account). 

I honestly haven’t seen an account yet that was undercharged at the old rate. But there’s no reason it couldn’t happen.

Any system that can misconfigure a rate change in one direction can easily make the mistake on the other end. Especially if you fall into one of the categories that wasn’t previously assessed the Visa Digital Commerce Fee.

Either way, the takeaway is the same. If you’re getting an adjustment now, it means your April, May, and June statements did not reflect the new rates that Visa published. 

Inflated Assessment Fees Aren’t Always an Accident

This current Visa Digital Commerce Service Adjustment seems like an honest mistake. But that’s not always the case.

Assessments are supposed to be pass-through fees. Meaning the network publishes a rate, your processor pays Visa directly, and then they recoup those costs from you without a markup. 

You pay markups elsewhere to the processor. But directly on an assessment. 

And the assessments printed on your statement are supposed to be an exact match to the rate that the networks publish. 

That said, we’ve caught some processors padding assessment fees over the years. Some claim accidental after they were caught but the way those were applied seemed to be systematic and intentional. Without the disclosure notices we’re seeing for the Digital Commerce Service Fee adjustments with proactive refunds. 

These Types of Billing Errors Can Come From Any Processor

I want to be clear that this isn’t a Heartland/Global-specific problem or even a fee-specific issue.

Yes, right now, we’re talking about an adjustment to Visa’s Digital Commerce Service Fee. But networks change interchange and assessments all the time. And processors make mistakes. 

Especially in a month like April when major changes tend to roll out at scale. If hundreds of fee categories are being changed with new ones introduced simultaneously, billing errors like this are far more common than merchants realize.

How to Check Your Statement for the Digital Commerce Fee Adjustment

1. Pull your latest statement and look for a line along the lines of “VS Digital Comm Fee Adj” under your processing fees. 
2. If you find one, confirm whether it’s a credit or debit.
3. Compare what you were charged for the Digital Commerce Service Fee in April, May, and June against Visa’s published rates for that period.
4. If your processor hasn’t said anything, ask your rep directly whether your account was billed correctly during that window.

Even if you don’t see an adjustment, you still need to complete step #3. That might be the most important step because you could have been getting overcharged but your processor may not automatically refund you.

This is something you’ll want to take care of ASAP to not only get what refunded for what you owe but also to ensure the mistake is corrected and you’re not continuing to get overbilled. 

Monthly Statement Monitoring Catches Errors Like This

Credit card processing statements are built in a way that makes small overcharges like this invisible.

Sometimes fees get bundled or descriptions are abbreviated. When rates are off by fractions of a percentage it’s hard to spot. The only way to catch this is by looking at every line item every month and knowing what the published rates are supposed to be.

If you don’t have the time or resources to do that yourself, send us your statements. We’ll audit them for free, negotiate with your current processor, and keep checking every month to spot errors or bogus fees immediately.