Mastercard's Global Merchant Audit Program (GMAP): What Changes in 2027

Mastercard announced GMAP to acquirers in a bulletin in late July 2026, effective 1 April 2027. It puts the Excessive Chargeback Merchant, High Excessive Chargeback Merchant and Excessive Fraud Merchant tiers under one program, adds new dispute tiers for merchants and acquirers, and is reported to replace the acquirer-level chargeback monitoring program. A revised Questionable Merchant Audit Program starts on the same date.

Merchants already in an audit are reported to keep their month count when GMAP starts, so a merchant in its fifth month today does not start again from month one.

The Excessive Chargeback Merchant tier still requires at least 100 chargebacks in a month, but the ratio that triggers it is reported to fall each January: 1.5% in 2027 and 2028, 1.3% in 2029, 1.1% in 2030 and 0.9% in 2031. The High Excessive tier stays at 3% with at least 300 chargebacks.

A merchant running at 1.2% today, with 100 or more chargebacks a month, is inside the line now and would be over it in 2030. If you are anywhere near 1%, plan your reduction now rather than when the line reaches you.

The new tiers measure fraud reported to Mastercard's Fraud and Loss Database plus non-fraud chargebacks, divided by the previous month's sales. Fraud therefore counts even when it never becomes a chargeback, for example when the card issuer reports it and the merchant refunds.

• High Dispute Merchant: a ratio of 5% or more, with at least USD 5,000 in fraud and non-fraud disputes. Fees are reported to start in month seven and rise to USD 25,000 a month.
• Excessive Dispute Merchant: a ratio of 50% or more, with at least USD 10,000. Fees are reported to start at USD 5,000 in month one and rise to USD 300,000 a month. After two months, the merchant is reported to become liable for all fraud chargebacks on transactions from the three months before identification and the six months after, regardless of 3-D Secure, and issuers can recover these without the merchant being able to dispute them.
• High Dispute Acquirer and Excessive Dispute Acquirer: the same measure across an acquirer's whole portfolio, at 0.5% and 0.7%. Acquirers above these lines are likely to tighten terms for the merchants that drive their ratio.

From April 2027, Mastercard is reported to identify merchants by their sub-merchant ID where a payment facilitator populates it, instead of by the facilitator's merchant ID. A sub-merchant with a high ratio can no longer be hidden inside a large facilitator's combined figures. Sources differ on whether this applies to every tier or only to the chargeback and fraud tiers.

• Visa's monitoring program uses one ratio of fraud reports plus disputes, with a merchant line of 1.5% in most regions. Mastercard keeps several tiers with separate lines.
• Both schemes count fraud reports, so once an issuer has reported a transaction as fraud, refunding it, including through an alert, usually prevents the chargeback but not the fraud report.
• Mastercard adds penalties beyond fees: issuers can reportedly be notified after two months in a dispute tier, and in the Excessive Dispute tier merchants reportedly lose 3-D Secure fraud protection and face fraud recoveries they cannot dispute.

• Calculate your Mastercard chargeback ratio monthly and compare it with the 2029 to 2031 lines, not just today's.
• Track fraud reports, not only chargebacks. Ask your acquirer for your fraud-to-sales figures.
• Fix the causes of fraud with stronger authentication on the risky segments, because a refund generally does not remove a fraud report the issuer has already filed.
• If you are a sub-merchant of a payment facilitator, expect to be monitored on your own numbers.
• Ask your acquirer how it will apply GMAP and what its own thresholds will be. Acquirers often act before the scheme line.

Ecompayer is not a payment provider. If your chargeback or fraud figures put your account at risk under the new rules, you add your business, volumes and dispute history once, and your profile is matched with a payment provider that considers merchants with your history. Final approval and terms are always the provider's decision.

• Mastercard bulletin GLB 14127.1, 28 July 2026, not publicly available, as reported by ChargebackHelp, Chargeflow and IXOPAY; see also Justt, Chargeback Gurus and Chargebacks911.
• Checkout.com, merchant communication on the Mastercard Global Merchant Audit Program, August 2026.
• Solidgate and Chargeflow, on GMAP sub-merchant monitoring.
• Visa, Visa Acquirer Monitoring Program fact sheet, 2025.

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