Credit card decline codes

Code 01 “Refer to Card Issuer” is an issuer instruction to contact the cardholder's bank before the charge can go through — not an approval.

Code 04 “Pick Up Card” is an issuer instruction to retain the card — the bank has flagged the account as lost, stolen, closed, or compromised.

Code 05 “Do Not Honor” is a generic issuer decline — the bank refused the charge without giving a specific reason.

Code 06 “Error” is a generic processing fault — something in the authorization chain errored out rather than the issuer refusing the charge.

Code 12 “Invalid Transaction” is an ISO 8583 issuer response: the bank rejected the request as invalid, not the cardholder's funds.

Code 13 “Invalid Amount” is an ISO 8583 decline tied to the transaction amount field, not the card itself.

Code 14 means the submitted card number isn’t a valid account at the issuer.

Code 15 “No Such Issuer” means the card’s BIN (issuer identification number) doesn’t match any real issuing bank on the network.

Code 19 “Re-enter Transaction” is an ISO 8583 processing fault — the authorization didn't complete and should be re-submitted, not refused by the issuer.

Code 34 “Suspected Fraud” means the issuing bank flagged the transaction as potentially fraudulent and declined it to protect the cardholder.

Code 41 “Lost Card” is a hard decline — the issuer has flagged the card as reported lost and will not authorize the charge.

Code 43 “Stolen Card” is a fraud decline — the issuer has reported the card stolen and, per ISO 8583, is instructing the merchant to retain it.

Code 46 “Closed Account” means the bank account funding the card has been closed — the payment source no longer exists.

Code 51 is a soft decline — the card works, but the balance won’t cover the charge at this moment.

Code 54 means the card’s expiration date has passed — the number is otherwise valid.

Code 55 “Incorrect PIN” means the PIN supplied with the transaction did not match the one the issuing bank has on file.

Code 57 “Transaction Not Permitted to Cardholder” means the issuer doesn’t allow this card to make this particular kind of charge — not that funds are missing.

Code 61 “Exceeds Withdrawal Amount Limit” is an ISO 8583 decline: the charge would breach a bank-set spending or withdrawal cap.

Code 62 “Restricted Card” means the issuing bank has restricted the card from completing this transaction.

Code 65 is a soft decline — the card works, but the issuer is limiting how often it can be charged in a period.

Code 78 “No Account” means the issuer can’t find the account the card points to — it doesn’t exist or was never opened.

Code 91 “Issuer or Switch Inoperative” is a transient processor-side error — the issuing bank or a routing switch was temporarily unavailable, not a problem with the card.

Code 96 “System Malfunction” is a transient system fault — the issuer’s or network’s authorization host errored out or couldn’t process the request, not a problem with the card.

generic_decline is Stripe’s catch-all for an issuer decline with no stated reason.

NMI code 261 means the issuer has revoked authorization for ALL recurring payments on the card — not just this merchant.

NMI code 262 instructs you to stop this specific recurring program on the card.

NMI code 264 is a soft decline: the issuer is explicitly telling you to retry in a few days.