If you’ve spotted a MC Credential Continuity Program charge or MC CCP FEE on your monthly processing statement, you might be wondering what this fee is for and if it’s legit.
In short, Mastercard’s CCP is an assessment fee passed through to merchants—specifically targeting businesses that process recurring payments with outdated or expired payment credentials.
Read on to learn more about this charge, including how much it costs and what you can do to avoid it.
What is the Mastercard Credential Continuity Program (CCP) Fee?
Mastercard’s Credential Continuity Program fee is assessed on non-swiped recurring transactions with outdated payment credentials. This is part of Mastercard’s broader initiative to ensure that stored payment information remains current and accurate for merchants who process recurring payments, subscription billing, and other transactions using stored card data.
According to Mastercard, the point of this fee is to reduce preventable declines and improve transaction approval rates. This ultimately enhances the payment experience for merchants and consumers alike.
It’s basically meant to discourage merchants from processing transactions using expired credentials. And it incentivizes businesses to update on-file card credentials to avoid the fee.
How Much is the Mastercard CCP Fee?
As of April 1, 2025, the Mastercard Credential Continuity Program fee is $0.09 per transaction for recurring payments processed with outdated credentials.
This is a significant jump from the old rate of $0.03 per qualifying transaction—making it even more important for merchants to maintain current payment information for recurring billing customers.
Like all other Mastercard assessments, the CCP fee is set at the card network level and passed through by your payment processor to your merchant statement.
Are Mastercard CCP Fees Negotiable?
No, the Mastercard Credential Continuity Program fee is non-negotiable.
Assessments and interchange rates set by the card networks are never negotiable. The only portion of your merchant fees that can be negotiated is your processor markup (and this particular fee doesn’t fall into that category).
Identifying CCP Fees on Your Merchant Statement
Mastercard’s Credential Continuity Program fee can appear on your statement under various names. The exact phrasing will depend on your processor. But we commonly see it in statements as:
- Credential Continuity Program MC
- MC CCP FEE
- Mastercard CCP Fee
- MC Credential Continuity Fee
- MC Credential CP Fee
- MC Credential Continuuity Program Fee
For those of you on an interchange plus pricing model, these fees should be clearly itemized on your statement. Some processors group Mastercard assessments together as a single charge, making it harder to identify individual charges.
If you don’t see this fee itemized on your statement but you process recurring payments with stored credentials, you’re likely still paying it. But your processor might be incorporating it into other line items or markups.
Read More: How to Read Your Merchant Statement
How to Avoid Mastercard CCP Fees
While the rate itself can’t be negotiated, you can take steps to eliminate it from your statement altogether—by not processing any card-on-file transactions with expired credentials.
This may sound easy in theory, but here are some best practices to help:
- Implement Account Updater Services — Most processors offer some type of service that automatically replaces outdated card information from issuing banks when cards are renewed or replaced. The cost of these services is typically less than the cumulative CCP fees you’ll pay over time.
- Monitor Credential Expiration Dates — If you’re not going to use an automated service, you’ll need to take the old-school approach and set up systems to track when stored payment credentials are approaching expiration. Then you’ll need to proactively reach out to your customers for updated info.
- Use Proper Transaction Coding — Make sure your payment system correctly identifies stored credential transactions with the appropriate merchant-initiated and/or cardholder-initiated indicators.
Ultimately, using the account updater service from your processor is going to be the best option.
Account Updater Service Costs vs. CCP Fees
On the surface, it looks like the account updater services are actually more expensive than the $0.09 CCP fee. But the math works in your favor when you consider the bigger picture.
For example, Adyen charges $0.25 per update, and Stripe charges $0.20 to $0.25 per automatic update. Fullsteam’s account updater fee is probably the highest you’ll find, at $1 per update. But everyone else tends to be around that $0.25 range.
At first glance, all of these numbers are obviously higher than the $0.09 CCP charge.
But there’s a crucial difference—account updater services are one-time fees per update, while CCP fees are charged on every transaction processed with expired credentials.
If you have a customer on a monthly subscription service that has expired credentials on file, you’ll pay $0.09 every month until the information is updated. After just three months, you’ve already paid $0.27—more than most account updater services charge for a single update.
For businesses with a high volume of recurring billing, these savings become even more significant. You could easily rack up hundreds of thousands of dollars in CCP fees if you don’t maintain updated payment credentials.
So while account updater services require a higher upfront cost per card, they eliminate CCP fees and ultimately keep your effective rates lower over time.
Final Thoughts on Mastercard CCP Fees
The fact that Mastercard just tripled its CCP fee from $0.03 to $0.09 per transaction is telling. It shows how important it is to keep on-file credentials updated, or you’re going to pay for it.
What was once a minor penalty has become a higher expense—and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Mastercard raise this fee again in the coming years.
While the MC CCP fee isn’t negotiable, you can still avoid it altogether by leveraging your processor’s automatic account updater service.
But if you still see CCP fees that seem unusually high, it could indicate other problems with your credential management processors (or it’s possible your processor is inflating your assessment fees).
In either case, it’s worth having our team here at MCC audit your statements to ensure you’re being charged properly. We can also identify other opportunities to reduce your overall processing costs without switching providers.