Credit card processing fees in the U.S. in 2024, by brand

Merchant swipe fees varied noticeably between credit card brands, with Discover being the cheapest of the four main networks found in the United States. This is according to a custom data table that tried to combine the interchange and assessment fees for payment networks. The source explicitly states it does not include payment processing fees - which is a part of the total merchant processing fee -  as each credit card brand structures this differently from one another. The average credit card processing fee, or swipe fee, was 2.24 percent. This means roughly 2.24 percent of the money paid in a transaction goes to the payment network. The actual fee can vary on the terms set by Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and American Express, but also on the merchant category code, or MCC, of the business involved.