TL;DR

Level 2 and Level 3 processing data are extra fields you submit with a business, purchasing or corporate card transaction. When the data is present and formatted correctly, the card networks can place the sale in a lower commercial interchange category. In Visa's U.S. schedule effective October 24, 2026, a Visa Purchasing or Corporate card sale that qualifies for Commercial Product 3 costs 1.75% + 10¢ in interchange, against 2.70% + 10¢ for the same card keyed or online without it. If you accept commercial cards on interchange-plus pricing and your gateway is not sending this data, you are paying the higher category on those sales. The fix is usually a gateway configuration change, not a new contract. On a flat-rate plan, the saving does not reach you.

What this actually is

Level 1 is the data set that runs every consumer card payment: card number, expiration, amount, merchant ID. That is enough for a grocery run or a coffee shop. Once a corporate, business or purchasing card hits your terminal or checkout, the card networks offer lower rates if you send more.

Level 2 adds a small set of fields on top of Level 1. Stripe's documentation lists the minimum as the sales tax amount and an order reference (often a PO number), and it also accepts a customer reference. The networks treat this as evidence of a commercial purchase. One big change: Stripe's documentation says Visa Level 2 was sunset in April 2026, so Visa's data savings now run only through Product 3 under Visa's Commercial Enhanced Data Program (CEDP). Level 2 still applies on Mastercard, according to the same page. Visa's current interchange schedule took effect October 24, 2026 (checked Nov 2026).

Level 3 adds line-item detail: for each item, a product name, product code, quantity, unit of measure, unit cost and tax, plus an order reference. Freight, discount and a commodity code are optional extras. Mastercard publishes its own commercial rates, which we could not open, so this page quotes no Mastercard rate numbers. Level 3 is built for procurement: a buyer's expense system can read the line items and post them to the right accounts without anyone keying invoices, which is why some purchasing card programs ask suppliers for it.

Level 2 and Level 3 processing data are additional transaction fields, like tax amount, order reference and line items, that can qualify B2B card payments for lower Visa and Mastercard interchange categories.

How it works under the hood

The data travels with the transaction: from your invoicing system or cart, through the gateway, into the processor's records and on to Visa or Mastercard, which use it to assign the interchange category. Depending on the gateway, you can send it at authorization or at capture; Stripe, for example, accepts line items at either step.

Fields Stripe lists as required for Level 2:

  1. Sales tax amount. For Visa Level 2 it had to be between 0.1% and 22% of the sale; for Mastercard Level 2 it must be between 0.1% and 30%, apart from a short list of exempt merchant category codes. A flat zero on a taxable sale misses the category.
  2. Order reference or PO number. Stripe truncates it to 25 alphanumeric characters before sending it to the networks. Any string the buyer can match to their procurement record works.
  3. A customer reference is also accepted, and some gateways ask for the merchant or ship-to postal code. Check your gateway's own field list.
  4. Tax-exempt buyers: Level 2 needs tax in the range above except for a few merchant category codes, while Level 3 and Product 3 accept $0 when no tax was collected, as long as the value is accurate. Ask your processor how it treats exempt buyers.

Level 3 adds a line-item array. Stripe's line-item documentation (checked Nov 2026) calls for, per line: product name, product code, quantity, unit of measure, unit cost and tax amount, plus the order reference. Optional fields include a commodity code, discount, shipping amount and ship-from and ship-to postal codes.

If a required field is missing or malformed, the transaction does not get the lower category and prices at the standard commercial rate instead. Stripe notes that its API does not reject line items that fail the network rules; those transactions simply miss the saving. On an interchange-plus statement the category name shows which rate applied. On flat-rate or tiered statements you usually cannot see it.

Visa's October 2026 schedule lists these Purchasing and Corporate categories: Commercial Product 3 at 1.75% + 10¢, Commercial Card Present at 2.50% + 10¢, Commercial Card Not Present at 2.70% + 10¢, and Non-Qualified at 2.95% + 10¢. Large tickets have their own rates, such as Commercial Product Large Ticket at 1.30% + $35. Visa Business credit cards have their own table, with Business Product 1, 2 and 3 rates that vary by the card's spend tier. Visa's schedule shows no general Level II commercial rate except one for fuel. Mastercard has its own commercial data rate categories; we could not open its schedule to quote them.

Operator note

Level 2 and Level 3 do not apply to consumer cards. If almost all of your statement volume is consumer credit and debit, this project saves very little. If a large share is commercial, it can be one of the bigger fee levers you have.

Where it goes wrong for operators

Five patterns account for most of the lost savings. Each is fixable, but only one shows up on the statement in plain language.

1. The gateway is not sending the data. Many gateways, Stripe among them, support Level 2 and Level 3 fields, but the merchant has to send them. If your integration sends only Level 1, every qualifying commercial sale prices at the standard rate. For example, on $100,000 a month of Visa Purchasing and Corporate card sales taken online, the gap between 2.70% and 1.75% is $950 a month.

2. The tax field is zero. If your invoicing system passes a $0 tax amount on a taxable sale, the network rejects the Level 2 qualification. Per Stripe's documentation, Mastercard requires tax between 0.1% and 30% of the sale for Level 2, and Visa required between 0.1% and 22% before it sunset Level 2. Level 3 and Product 3 do not require tax, but the value must be accurate.

3. Flat-rate processor with no Level 2/3 path. Stripe, Square and PayPal price commercial cards at the same flat rate as consumer cards (2.9% + 30¢ online on Stripe's standard plan, per Stripe's published pricing, prices checked Oct 2026). A lower interchange category does not lower a flat price, so the merchant captures none of the saving. Stripe's documentation says the commercial card savings apply to its interchange-plus (IC+) users.

4. The processor's gateway claims Level 3 but the data fails validation. Common errors: line item totals do not sum to the order total, tax is missing or out of range, or product codes are too long. Stripe validates arithmetic by default and does not send line items with arithmetic errors to the networks, so those sales miss the lower rate. The transaction still settles, and the merchant may assume Level 3 was applied.

5. Card-not-present surcharges stack on top. A keyed or online B2B sale costs more than the same card in person. In Visa's October 2026 schedule, a Purchasing or Corporate card sale without qualifying data prices at Commercial Card Not Present, 2.70% + 10¢, against 2.50% + 10¢ card present and 1.75% + 10¢ for Commercial Product 3.

Watch out

Stripe's standard 2.9% + 30¢ online plan is flat regardless of card type, so it does not pass Level 2 or Level 3 interchange savings to the merchant. Stripe's documentation says the savings for eligible commercial cards apply to IC+ users.

Worked example with real numbers

Profile (hypothetical): a Midwest industrial supply company. $850,000 monthly card volume, $1,150 average ticket, about 740 transactions per month. 78% of card volume is on commercial Visa or Mastercard accounts (purchasing cards, business credit cards and government purchasing cards). The contract is interchange-plus 0.30% and $0.10 per transaction, billed correctly, but the gateway sends only Level 1 data.

Commercial card volume: $850,000 multiplied by 0.78 equals $663,000 per month. Assume $400,000 of that is Visa Purchasing and Corporate cards paid online, and the rest is Visa Business and Mastercard commercial cards, which we leave out of the math because their spreads differ.

Without qualifying data, those Visa sales price at Commercial Card Not Present, 2.70% + 10¢. With Product 3 data, they price at Commercial Product 3, 1.75% + 10¢. The per-transaction fee is the same, so the spread is 0.95%.

Hypothetical example

Monthly interchange savings on $400,000 of Visa Purchasing and Corporate volume at a 0.95% spread: $400,000 multiplied by 0.0095 equals $3,800. Annual savings: $45,600. If the gateway work carried a one-time setup fee of, say, $750, it would pay back in about six days. Ask your processor whether Visa's CEDP program adds a network fee on these sales, and net it out.

Two things to note. First, the savings live in interchange, which the merchant already pays through on interchange-plus. The processor's markup of 0.30% does not change. Second, the savings only apply to commercial card transactions; consumer cards do not have Level 2 or Level 3 categories. If only $100,000 a month runs on Visa Purchasing and Corporate cards, the same spread is $950 a month.

The size of the saving depends on how much of your volume is on eligible commercial cards and which network issued them. For many B2B merchants on interchange-plus, the fix is a gateway configuration change, not a new processor.

Operator playbook

Seven actions, in order, that you can run this week:

  1. Pull last month's statement and find the interchange category breakdown. Interchange-plus statements list categories by name. Look for Visa names like "Commercial Card Not Present," "Non-Qualified" or "Business Product 1" next to "Commercial Product 3." If the first group carries significant volume, your commercial cards are not qualifying.
  2. Calculate your commercial card mix. Sum the dollar volume in commercial categories and divide by total card volume. The higher the share, the more a Level 2/3 project is worth.
  3. Email your processor: "What is required for our gateway to send Level 3 and Visa Product 3 data on commercial transactions, and what fields are currently being sent?" A real answer names your gateway, the specific API fields and a test cycle. A vague answer is a sign the processor cannot capture Level 3.
  4. Ask for a Level 3 enablement test on one terminal or one API integration. Ask whether your gateway has a test mode. Run 10 commercial card transactions with full Level 2/3 data, settle the batch, and confirm the interchange category on the next statement.
  5. Check that your invoicing or ERP system can pass line-item data to the gateway. Ask your ERP or invoicing vendor whether its payment connector sends line items, and who configures it. If your system cannot pass line items, Visa Product 3 and Level 3 will not work; Mastercard Level 2 is still on the table.
  6. If your processor is Stripe, Square or PayPal at flat-rate pricing, get a quote on interchange-plus. Stripe's line-item savings apply to its IC+ users, not the standard 2.9% + 30¢ plan. Compare the all-in cost on your commercial volume.
  7. Send accurate tax on every B2B sale, and ask your processor how to mark tax-exempt customers. A $0 tax on a taxable sale fails Mastercard Level 2, while Level 3 and Product 3 accept $0 only when no tax was collected.

Two of these steps cost nothing. The rest depend on your gateway and ERP; get the setup cost in writing and compare it with the monthly spread on your own eligible volume.