Visa Credit Voucher Fee

Reading your credit card processing statements each month is a good idea for any business. It’s one of the best ways to spot rate increases or additional charges that you haven’t seen in the past. 

In doing so, you might see a line item for a Visa Credit Voucher or Visa Base II Credit Voucher Fee—sometimes written as just VISA VOUCH FEE CREDIT or Visa Credit Voucher Fee (Credit). 

What is it? Is this fee legit? Can it be removed from my statement? Is my processor ripping me off?

All fair questions, and this guide has the answers. 

What is the Visa Credit Voucher Fee?

The Visa Credit Voucher Fee is a network assessment fee that applies to refunded transactions. It’s a network assessment fee imposed by Visa, charged a flat rate each time a refund is issued to a customer’s Visa card.

The cost of a Visa Credit Voucher Fee depends on whether the refunded transaction is going to a Visa-branded credit card or Visa-branded debit card.

• For credit card refunds, the fee is $0.0195 per transaction
• For debit card refunds, the fee is $0.0155 per transaction

It’s worth noting that the term “credit” in “Visa Credit Voucher” doesn’t refer to a credit card, but rather a credit (refund) to the cardholder. 

So even a debit card refund will still have the word “credit” in the line item, such as Visa Credit Voucher Fee (Debit). 

Like all assessment fees imposed at the card network level, the Visa Credit Voucher Fee is a legitimate charge that’s non-negotiable and can’t be removed from your statement. 

Visa Credit Voucher Fee vs. Visa Base II Credit Voucher Fee

Visa Credit Voucher and Visa Base II Credit Voucher are essentially the same thing. The only difference is that the “Base II” designation applies to transactions in the US.

But as you’ll see below, when we look at examples of these fees, the “Base II” isn’t always shown on statements (even for US-based refunds).

Examples of Visa Credit Voucher Fees on Statements

It’s important to monitor your statements closely when you’re looking at assessment fees. That’s because some processors (unfortunately) inflate these charges when passing them through to merchants. 

We have a guide that explains how to spot padded assessments that you can use as a resource. 

But for now, I want to look at a couple of different examples of how the Visa Credit Voucher Fee might appear on your statement.

The first example comes from Cayan:

As you can see, there are two different Visa Credit Voucher fees that I’ve highlighted above—one for credit card refunds and another for debit card refunds.

But if you’re scanning through your statements quickly, it would be very easy to miss these two line items. 

That’s because Cayan has these fees itemized as VS-VSCRVCHRFEECR and VS-VSCRVCHRFEEDB. 

The good news here is that both fees are correct—passed through at $0.0195 and $0.0155, respectively. 

Here’s another example, but this time, from a Global Payments statement:

Again—really easy to overlook this if you’re just searching for “Visa Credit Voucher” or “Visa Base II Credit Voucher.”

Global has these fees both itemized as VS CR VOUCHER PROC. 

They don’t even differentiate the credit card refunds and debit card refunds in the line items—both are written identically. 

Upon closer examination, we can see that the first one applies to refunded Visa credit card transactions (because it’s billed at $0.0195) and the second one applies to refunded Visa debit card transactions (billed at $0.0155). 

The point I’m trying to make is that this fee may be worded slightly differently depending on what processor you’re using. But regardless of how they’re itemizing the fee, just make sure they’re charging you the correct amount.