How to Exit the Visa VAMP Program: Requirements and Timeline

What Is the Visa VAMP Program?

The Visa Account Management Program — universally known as VAMP — is Visa's primary mechanism for identifying and penalising merchants who generate disproportionately high volumes of chargebacks and fraud. Visa launched VAMP in April 2025 as a replacement for two legacy programs: the Visa Dispute Monitoring Program (VDMP) and the Visa Fraud Monitoring Program (VFMP). By consolidating them, Visa created a single framework that monitors both dispute ratios and fraud ratios simultaneously.

VAMP operates through your acquiring bank. When Visa flags your account, it notifies your acquirer, who is then required to take action on Visa's behalf. You will typically receive a formal notification letter from your acquirer — not directly from Visa — informing you that you have been enrolled in VAMP and specifying your current tier.

Why does it matter? Because VAMP carries real financial consequences. Merchants in the program face escalating monthly fines that increase the longer they remain non-compliant. At the most severe tier, the risk of having Visa acceptance rights permanently terminated — and placement on the MATCH list — can make it impossible to process card payments with any major network.

VAMP uses two core metrics. The dispute ratio is calculated as the number of chargebacks filed in a given month divided by the number of transactions processed in the prior month, expressed as a percentage. The fraud ratio is calculated as the number of fraud-coded chargebacks divided by total sales volume, expressed in basis points (bps), where 1 bps = 0.01%. Breaching either threshold — regardless of the other — is sufficient to trigger VAMP enrollment.

VAMP Tiers: EVS and HEVS

VAMP has two active violation tiers above the standard threshold: Excessive Violation Status (EVS) and High Excessive Violation Status (HEVS). The table below summarises the thresholds that trigger each tier.

A merchant breaches EVS when their dispute ratio reaches 0.9% or higher, OR when their fraud ratio reaches 0.9 basis points or higher. The thresholds are independent — exceeding either one places the merchant in EVS.

HEVS is triggered when the dispute ratio reaches 1.8% or higher, OR the fraud ratio reaches 1.8 basis points or higher. HEVS fines are substantially higher, escalate more quickly, and Visa may require the acquirer to submit a formal remediation plan on the merchant's behalf. In the most extreme cases, acquirers may be required to cease processing for the merchant to avoid Visa imposing penalties on the acquirer itself.

Exit Requirements for EVS

To exit EVS, a merchant must bring their dispute ratio below 0.9% — the EVS entry threshold — and maintain it there for three consecutive calendar months. Both the dispute ratio and the fraud ratio must remain below 0.9% (and 0.9 bps respectively) for all three months. Meeting the threshold in two months and then slipping back in the third resets the clock.

There is no automatic release mechanism. Visa reviews merchant data monthly but does not proactively trigger an exit review. Your acquirer will notify you when Visa confirms that the consecutive-month requirement has been met and that you are being removed from the program.

During the EVS period, monthly fines continue to accrue. Fine amounts are specified in Visa's acquiring bank agreements and are typically passed through by your acquirer as a line item on your processing statement. The fine structure is progressive — merchants who have been in EVS longer pay higher monthly fines than those who are newly enrolled. This creates a financial incentive to resolve the issue as quickly as possible rather than allowing it to drag on.

While in EVS, your acquirer may also impose additional restrictions — for example, requiring you to hold more reserve funds or capping your monthly processing volume. These are acquirer-level decisions that vary by institution.

Exit Requirements for HEVS

Exiting HEVS is more demanding than exiting EVS. A merchant must achieve a dispute ratio below 0.9% — not just below the HEVS threshold of 1.8% — for three consecutive months. Reducing to, say, 1.5% is not sufficient; the exit threshold is the same regardless of whether the merchant is in EVS or HEVS.

In practice, this means a merchant who enters HEVS at 2.5% must reduce their ratio by more than half — and sustain that reduction for a quarter — before Visa will consider releasing them from the program. This is a significant undertaking and typically requires a comprehensive remediation plan rather than incremental adjustments.

Visa may also require the acquirer to submit a formal remediation plan that outlines the specific steps the merchant is taking to reduce their ratio. This plan documents the merchant's commitment and the acquirer's oversight. Merchants in HEVS should work closely with their acquirer's risk team throughout this process.

If a merchant in HEVS fails to demonstrate meaningful progress within a Visa-specified timeframe, the acquirer may be forced to terminate the merchant relationship. The merchant may then find themselves on the MATCH list, making it extremely difficult to obtain a new merchant account with any acquirer.

How Long Does It Take to Exit VAMP?

The minimum time to exit VAMP is three consecutive calendar months of compliant ratios. In practice, most merchants need four to five months from the date they implement corrective measures to achieve an official exit. The gap exists because of data lags built into the way Visa counts the ratio.

Here is why: when you implement changes in Month 1, those changes affect the chargebacks that will be filed in future months — not the chargebacks that were already filed in Month 1. Since Visa measures chargebacks filed in the current month against transactions processed in the prior month, the full benefit of Month 1 improvements does not appear in your ratio until Month 2 or Month 3. The timeline below illustrates a realistic scenario:

This timeline assumes that the corrective measures implemented in Month 1 are effective and reduce the ratio to below 0.9% starting in Month 2. If the ratio takes longer to improve — perhaps because some legacy chargebacks are still working through the system — the timeline extends accordingly.

One important nuance: you do not need to wait until the official exit to stop accruing fines. Fines are assessed based on your monthly ratio. If your ratio drops below the fine threshold, fines stop even while you are still completing the three-month compliance window.

6 Strategies to Reduce Your Dispute Ratio Fast

When you are in a VAMP program, speed matters. Every month of non-compliance adds fines and risk. Here are the highest-impact actions to take immediately.

Of these six strategies, the ones with the fastest impact on your ratio are typically (2) Verifi enrollment and (3) 3DS2 implementation. Both can reduce new chargebacks from being filed within days of activation. The others — root cause analysis, billing descriptors, proactive refunds — have cumulative effects that build over several months.

For merchants in HEVS with very high ratios, no single measure will be sufficient. Typically, it requires implementing all of the above simultaneously and working with your acquirer to ensure that any systemic fraud issues (such as a compromised card-on-file dataset) are resolved at the source.

Check Your VAMP Ratio

Before you can exit VAMP, you need to know exactly where you stand. Use our free VAMP calculator to compute your current dispute ratio and forecast how many months it will take to exit based on your projected chargeback trajectory.

The calculator uses the same formula Visa uses: chargebacks in the current month divided by transactions in the prior month. It also shows you which VAMP tier you currently fall into and estimates your monthly fine exposure.

If your business also processes Mastercard, be aware that Mastercard uses a different calculation method and has its own monitoring program with separate thresholds. Use our Mastercard fines calculator to check your exposure on that network as well. For merchants who need help managing their VAMP remediation plan end-to-end, our managed outsourcing service can handle the full dispute response process while you focus on root-cause fixes.