How many times can you retry a declined card payment?
Visa allows up to 20 retries on the same card, amount and currency in 30 days since May 2025. Mastercard allows 10 retries in 24 hours and 35 in 30 days. Beyond that, fees apply, and some decline codes must never be retried.
In detail
The card schemes set limits. Visa allows up to 20 retries on the same card, amount and currency within 30 days, a rule in place since May 2025. Mastercard allows 10 retries in 24 hours and 35 in 30 days. Beyond those limits, fees apply, and some decline codes must never be retried at all.
What counts as a retry
A retry is a new authorization attempt for the same payment after a decline. Attempts on another acquirer still count toward the scheme limits, because the schemes see the same card and amount.
Codes that must not be retried
Decline codes signaling a stolen card, a closed account or a fraud suspicion are final. Retrying them breaks scheme rules and harms the merchant's standing with issuers.
Retrying well
Fewer, better-timed retries recover more than many quick ones. Retrying a soft decline on another route, waiting before retrying insufficient funds, and stopping after a hard decline all follow the same principle.
What it means for payment operators
Retry limits apply to your merchants' traffic as a whole, across providers. A fallback policy per merchant account, with maximum attempts and a return code mapping that locks scheme-governed codes, keeps retries within the rules. For subscriptions, Retry policies spread attempts over time instead of firing them at once.