How Do I Find the Right MCC (Merchant Category Code) For My Business?
MCC or Merchant Category Codes can affect the Credit Card processing fees and interchange rates paid by businesses for the goods or products that are sold. It can have an impact on how a business is categorized by the IRS or Internal Revenue Service. Tax payments can be affected as well. MCC codes also influence the way customers are rewarded for purchases that they conduct with the help of credit cards.
What is a Merchant Category Code?
Merchant Category Code (MCC), for the uninitiated, is a 4-digit numeral used by top credit card networks such as MasterCard, American Express, Discover and Visa. These codes are assigned by the networks to each business that applies for accepting payments through credit cards. The code matches the type of service or business offered by the company.
MCCs are used by credit card networks for categorizing purchases and for tracking the same. Whenever a purchase is made, the category allotted to it is associated to the Merchant Category Code or MCC. Top hotels and airline companies have MCC codes of their own.
How to Find the Right MCC for Your Business?
While conducting purchase for your own business, these codes can be useful for you in optimizing your credit card rewards. For specific credit cards, you can get points from the rewards programs for purchases belonging to specific coding categories.
How exactly can you find out the merchant category code of a specific business, such as that of your own? Every card network has a list of its own although numerous codes are shared among such networks. Thus, a business might have one code with MasterCard and another with Discover, for example.
The codes can differ, according to card processor. And yet, some commonalities are there. Merchants can get in touch with your Credit Card processing companies, such as MasterCard or American Express, and find out how to discover their MCC code.
If you want to know about the list of the MCC codes of every credit card network, you can check out the website of the credit card processor and search for the MCCs. You can get connected to the right resource. However, if you have some particular questions to ask, you can call the number that is given there on the back of the credit card you are using.
A peek into the bank statement can also let credit card holders find out the way a credit card purchase is categorized. With every card purchase, a merchant description section should be there – revealing the associated merchant category. This is likely to be the category name and not a 4-digit code.
