Declined Issuing transactions

An Issuing transaction can be declined for the following reasons:

• Authentication failures, for example due to incorrect details or process issues
• Security concerns, for example suspected fraud or unauthorized transactions
• Policy violations, for example exceeding limits
• Technical issues, such as network outages or processing errors
• Insufficient funds
• Card restrictions, for example on certain merchant categories 

See Issuing decline codes for more information. These help merchants and acquirers diagnose transaction failures and provide guidance on how to retry or otherwise address the issue. 

To troubleshoot the decline in the Dashboard, you need one of the following user roles:

• Admin
• Custom role with the View all transactions, cards, cardholders, and card products permission
• Developer
• Disputes manager
• Disputes operator
• Read only
• Risk manager
• Support manager

Check the decline reason

To check why a transaction was declined, follow these steps:

1. Ensure you have the card ID or transaction ID.
2. Sign in to the Dashboard.
3. Go to Issuing > All transactions.
4. Search for the transaction by transaction ID. 
5. In the Status column, hover over the Information icon next to the Declined status.
6. For more information, select the transaction to view the Transaction details page.

  If you use the Authorization Relay service, check the reason provided for the decline.

Check the card status

To check the status of the card used for the transaction:

1. Sign in to the Dashboard.
2. Go to Issuing > Cards.
3. Search for the card using the cardholder's details or the card ID.
4. Check that the card's status is Active, not Suspended or Revoked. 

Check your Issuing balance

To check the balance of the sub-account linked to the card:

1. Sign in to the Dashboard.
2. In the business entity selector, select the entity view.
3. Go to Business account > Balances.

  If the decline reason is insufficient_funds, you need to fund your Issuing balance. Consider enabling balance notifications to avoid insufficient_funds declines. 

Check card controls

Check if the transaction exceeded any controls on the card. 

See View card controls for instructions.

Check for technical issues

The decline may be due to a temporary outage or error in the merchant's system or a network problem.

The cardholder may be able to retry the transaction.