List of Merchant Category Codes (MCC) for Visa and Mastercard
Merchant Category Codes (MCCs) are used to identify the type of business in which a merchant is engaged. Most of the time MCC identifies a business correctly but there are always some outliers, especially when it comes to small businesses. This is a list of codes that comes from Citibank and I saw it posted on reddit.
Payment brands use merchant category codes (MCCs) to classify merchants and businesses by the type of goods or services provided. Payment brands, issuers and acquirers can use MCCs to categorize, track and restrict transactions. These codes are also used to reward the correct amount of points for a credit card purchase, based on the category.
Often, MCCs are recognized by all payment brands; however, not all codes are recognized by all brands. Payment brands frequently add, eliminate or change the codes with regularly-scheduled enhancements.
This document shows how merchants code for Visa and Mastercard payments. Most of the codes are the same, but there are some differences as noted by Econ0mist on reddit. Visa and Mastercard differ in how they categorize financial institutions, when it comes to funding accounts. This is important when opening bank accounts and funding with a Visa or Mastercard credit card. You would want to do this to earn free credit card rewards, but if cash advance fees are charged, then it is not worth it.
Mastercard apparently supports a wider range of MCC for these types of transactions, such as Quasi Cash–Member Financial Institution, or Funding Transactions. There also more categories that are only supported by one issuer and not the other. Take a look at the list here.
