The interchange settlement
tracker: what's real
vs. what's still a proposal

If you've read a headline this year that said Visa and Mastercard "agreed to cut swipe fees," you read a headline that skipped the most important word: preliminary. Settlement litigation moves through predictable legal stages, and the 2026 interchange case is currently sitting at the second of roughly five — a long way from anything landing on a statement. Here is a tracker of exactly where it stands, sourced to the docket and the court's own record, so you can separate what's actually happened from what a vendor blog is hoping will happen.

The stage this settlement is actually at

This is a 21-year-old case. The underlying multidistrict litigation, In re Payment Card Interchange Fee and Merchant Discount Antitrust Litigation, dates to 2005 and already produced one final, closed settlement back in 2019 — a separate matter that has been paying out claims to eligible merchants for years and has nothing to do with the rate or rule changes discussed below. The 2026 case is a distinct, later settlement, covering different relief and a different period, and it is the one making headlines now.

On June 9, 2026, Judge Brian Cogan granted preliminary approval to a revised version of that settlement, finding it "fair, reasonable, and adequate" enough to move forward — after having rejected an earlier version of the same deal in 2024 for being too weak. Preliminary approval is a procedural green light to notify the class and schedule a fairness hearing; it is not a ruling on the merits and it creates no binding obligation on Visa or Mastercard yet.

What the proposal actually contains — and none of it is active

As preliminarily approved (again: not final, not in effect), the settlement's headline terms are:

• A 10 basis point reduction in posted interchange rates across the board, held for five years.
• A 1.25% rate cap on standard consumer credit card interchange, held for eight years.
• A partial rollback of the "honor all cards" rule, which today forces a merchant that accepts one Visa or Mastercard product to accept all of them — the settlement would let some merchants decline specific premium products.
• New brand- and product-level surcharging options, allowing a merchant to surcharge a specific expensive card product rather than surcharging every credit card at a flat rate — a meaningfully different mechanic from the flat 3% surcharge cap that governs today under Visa's current Core Rules.

Every one of those four items is a proposed term of a settlement that has not received final approval. None of them can be relied on for compliance planning, none of them appear on any live Visa or Mastercard fee schedule today, and MidPay will not represent any of them as active until a final order says so.

Term	Status today	Realistic earliest effect
10bps posted-rate cut (5 yrs)	Not in effect	Late 2026–2027, pending final approval
1.25% consumer credit cap (8 yrs)	Not in effect	Same — tied to final approval + appeal window
Partial honor-all-cards rollback	Not in effect	Same
Brand/product-level surcharging	Not in effect	Same
Visa 3% / Mastercard 4% surcharge caps (existing rule)	In effect now	Already current law of the card networks
Durbin debit interchange cap, Reg II	In effect now	Already current federal law

Why NACS says this still isn't over

The National Association of Convenience Stores has been the most vocal objector in the case, arguing the revised deal still doesn't fix what it calls a "broken" card market — the 2010 Durbin framework covers only debit, and NACS's position is that no comparable structural check exists for the much larger credit interchange pool. At the April 27, 2026 fairness hearing, objections came from other large merchants as well, including counsel representing Walmart. Judge Cogan's June 9 order acknowledged that opposition directly, while still finding the deal adequate to proceed — but he stopped short of calling it beyond challenge. NACS has stated it intends to appeal to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals if and when the court grants final approval, which would extend the timeline well past any final-approval date.

Preliminary approval is the court agreeing the deal is worth putting in front of the class. It is not the court agreeing the deal is done.

That distinction matters for a very practical reason: any processor, consultant, or blog post telling a merchant today that their "rates just went down because of the settlement" is describing something that has not happened. The realistic sequence from here is a final fairness hearing and ruling, then a Second Circuit appeal window if NACS or other objectors follow through, then — only after all of that resolves — an implementation period before the networks actually republish rate schedules under new terms. Analysts covering the case for the payments trade press put the earliest plausible date for any of this reaching a real statement at late 2026, with 2027 considered more likely.

What to actually do with this information right now

Nothing about your current interchange-plus statement changes because of this case, and nothing should. The correct action for a merchant today is not to wait for a rate cut that may be a year or more away — it's to make sure the markup layered on top of interchange, which is the one number that's always negotiable regardless of what interchange itself is doing, is priced fairly right now. That's a separate question from the settlement, and it's one you can act on this month, not in 2027.

If you're on a flat-rate quote, the settlement's proposed changes don't reach you any differently than they'd reach an interchange-plus merchant — a flat-rate processor still blends the same interchange cost into one number either way, settlement or no settlement. The gap between MidPay's 1.49% debit / 2.69% credit and a typical flat-rate processor at 2.6% + 10¢ on everything is driven by how card-type mix is priced, not by anything this litigation touches — on $50,000/month at a 60% debit mix, that gap runs about $378/month, or $4,536/year, today, independent of whatever happens in the Second Circuit.

Frequently asked questions

Is the Visa/Mastercard interchange settlement final?

No. Judge Brian Cogan (E.D.N.Y.) granted only preliminary approval on 2026-06-09. Final approval requires a separate fairness hearing and ruling, and NACS has said it will appeal to the Second Circuit if final approval is granted — so the case is not closed even after a final ruling.

Has my interchange rate already gone down because of the settlement?

No. As of this writing no rate reduction, rate cap, or rule change from the 2026 settlement has taken effect on any merchant's processing statement. Industry analysts estimate any real changes would not reach statements before late 2026 at the earliest, more likely 2027, after final approval and the appeal window run their course.

What does the settlement actually propose?

As preliminarily approved, the roughly $38 billion settlement proposes a 10 basis point reduction in posted interchange rates for five years, a 1.25% rate cap on standard consumer credit cards for eight years, and a partial rollback of the networks' honor-all-cards rule plus new brand- and product-level surcharging options — none of which are currently in force.

Is this the same as the 2019 interchange settlement?

No. The 2019 settlement (final approval December 2019) was a separate, already-final case that has been distributing claim funds to eligible merchants for years. The 2026 case is a distinct, later settlement covering a different period and different relief, and it has not reached final approval.