Getting Started

Visa Recurrent is a recurring payment management solution that connects cardholders, issuers, and sellers through a unified platform, providing transparency, control, and connectivity across the recurring payments ecosystem.

Cardholders can view and manage their recurring orders, such as subscriptions, memberships, utility bills, and other card-not-present recurring expenses.

Visa Recurrent centralizes recurring payment details, enables cardholders to manage the recurring order lifecycle (such as cancellations and other updates), and provides notifications. It can also help support seller retention.

Visa Recurrent is built to eventually operate across all payment methods, providing the opportunity to offer a seamless experience for customers, sellers, and financial institutions. At launch, Visa Recurrent supports only payments processed through VisaNet. Available through APIs and a Visa-hosted user interface, Visa Recurrent provides recurring payments capabilities.

• Recurring Order Visibility and Lifecycle Management – Recurring orders establish a single unique relationship between a cardholder and a merchant, such as a streaming subscription, gym membership, or utilities payment. A cardholder can have multiple relationships with the same seller, and each relationship is a unique recurring order.

  For example, a cardholder transacting at a marketplace seller subscribes to the seller's streaming and gaming services with separate payment terms for each. Visa Recurrent automatically identifies recurring orders from transaction data and lets cardholders view past transactions for each recurring order.

• Notifications – Visa Recurrent delivers all outbound events via PACE webhook callbacks to issuer or issuer processor (issuer) and merchant or acquirer (seller) endpoint URLs configured in the profile or organization during onboarding.
• Integration
  • Visa-hosted user interface on Visa Access for issuers only.
  • REST APIs on Visa Developer Center (VDC) are available for issuers and sellers. Clients access APIs through VDC and receive webhook notifications through PACE.

  Currently, issuers can participate directly or through processors or partners offering On-Behalf-Of (OBO) services. Seller support through direct merchant integrations is available today. Support for merchant OBO services through acquirers and other seller partners will be available in a future release.

Using Visa Recurrent, clients can access:

• Issuer

  View a list of recurring orders – For every eligible recurring, installment, or unscheduled card-on-file transaction processed through VisaNet, Visa Recurrent generates a Visa Recurrent Reference ID (VRR ID). The VRR ID is a unique identifier used to track and manage recurring orders across all API and UI operations and notifications. Supported identifiers for recurring order identification and payment blocks include the PAN + order identifiers (VRR ID, OTID, VMID, CAID, Card Acceptor, Merchant Name, PFID|SMID) + amount range, wherever a pattern is identified.

  Update a recurring order – If applicable, issuers can request that recurring orders be cancelled or reactivated using the Update Recurring Payment Order Status API or the relevant UI action upon cardholder request. This action creates or removes a payment block (stop instruction) in VisaNet Integrated Payment (V.I.P.) and RSI. Issuers can additionally remove the payment block without changing the status of a cancelled recurring order. The duration of this payment block is currently based on the configuration in the client profile during onboarding.

  Remove a payment block – Issuers can remove an active payment block from a recurring order using the Remove Payment Stop from Recurring Payment Order API. This action only applies when the order is in CANCELLED status and currently has an active payment block in place; removing the block allows transactions for the relevant merchant to resume, while the order itself remains CANCELLED. This action does not change the order's status — to reactivate the order, issuers must separately call the Update API.

  View a list of transactions – Issuers can retrieve the transaction history associated with a recurring order using the List Transactions for Recurring Payment Order API, filtered by date range and by transaction source (authorization, clearing, or both). Each result includes details such as the card acceptor, merchant category, transaction amount and currency, transaction date, and response code, giving issuers visibility into the payment activity tied to a VRR ID.

  Notifications – Issuers can receive Visa Recurrent outbound events through PACE webhook callbacks using the endpoint URLs configured in their profile or organization during onboarding.

• Seller – Seller can be a merchant, acquirer, or any other merchant partner handling recurring payments on their behalf.

  Notifications – Sellers can receive Visa Recurrent outbound events through PACE webhook callbacks using the endpoint URLs configured in their profile or organization during onboarding.

  Confirm the status of a cancellation (CANCELLED or RETAINED) – After receiving a cancellation request notification, sellers can inform Visa Recurrent of the status of the cancellation request . This seller confirmation results in a notification to the issuer.

The Visa Recurrent Reference ID (VRR ID) is the unique identifier for each recurring order, generated by Visa. This 26-character identifier is used across all UI and API operations and notifications to track and manage orders throughout their lifecycle.

Recurring orders are automatically created by Visa Recurrent from transaction data. Issuers that implement APIs, receive real-time notifications when new recurring orders are identified and registered based on recurring transaction patterns. Recurring orders identified through historical transaction data do not generate notifications when they are identified and registered by Visa Recurrent.

VisaNet Integrated Payment (V.I.P.) stand-in processing (STIP) advices for Visa Recurrent declines are generated regardless of the implementation option. Issuers and issuer processors must ensure that their host systems can handle STIP advices containing Visa Recurrent response codes (R1) and STIP or Switch reason code 9201. This is particularly important for new issuer implementations of Visa Recurrent, although these are existing values for Visa Stop Payment Service (VSPS) or Visa Subscription Manager (VSM) clients migrating to Visa Recurrent.