Payment Decline Codes Reference

Every ISO 8583 response code classified as a soft decline (retriable) or hard decline (terminal), with recovery guidance for each. Click any code for a detailed breakdown.

1 SUCCESS 7 SOFT DECLINES 10 HARD DECLINES

Success

Transaction approved by the issuing bank

Soft Declines - Retriable

Temporary conditions that may resolve on their own. Intelligent retry logic can recover 20-40% of these failures.

Insufficient funds

The cardholder's available balance is below the transaction amount

Exceeds withdrawal limit

Daily or per-transaction limit exceeded

Exceeds withdrawal frequency

Too many transactions in the current period

Issuer unavailable

The issuer's system is down or unreachable

System malfunction

Generic system error in the processing chain

Refer to card issuer

The issuer wants the merchant to call for voice authorization

Generic refusal from the issuer

Hard Declines - Do Not Retry

Permanent problems that will never succeed on retry. Retrying wastes processing fees and damages your decline ratio with card networks.

Invalid transaction

The transaction type is not supported for this card or merchant category

The amount exceeds issuer limits or is formatted incorrectly

Invalid card number

The PAN failed Luhn check or is not in any issuer's range

Lost card, pick up

Reported lost by the cardholder

Stolen card, pick up

Reported stolen

The card's expiration date has passed

PIN verification failed

Transaction not permitted

This card type is restricted from this transaction type or merchant category

Invalid merchant

The merchant ID is not recognized or has been deactivated by the acquirer

The issuer has flagged this card for capture

See These Codes in Action

Watch how response codes flow through a complete ISO 8583 authorization lifecycle.

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