The Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) is a major merchant cost component for Visa card acceptance. Businesses need to know how the FANF fee is calculated so that they can properly budget their payment processing costs. This in-depth guide discusses the FANF fee structure of 2025, its calculation method, and optimization strategies.

Introduction to FANF

The Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF) is a quarterly fee charged by Visa to merchants who accept Visa-branded cards. Implemented in 2012, the FANF was created as part of Visa’s reaction to the Durbin Amendment to the Dodd-Frank Act, which capped debit interchange fees. The FANF enables Visa to earn revenue through a fixed fee model instead of exclusively through transaction-based pricing.

In contrast to percentage-based interchange fees that change according to transaction volumes, the FANF is a fixed charge based mainly on a merchant’s processing volume, number of locations, and acceptance methods. Up to 2025, the FANF remains a compulsory fee for merchants in the Visa network.

Core Components of FANF Fee Calculation

• Marchant Category Classification: Visa employs a business type to calculate merchant placement decisions to allocate distinct categories for each merchant. Visa categorizes merchants into seven groups, which are Retail and Fast Food, Restaurant, Grocery and Supermarket, Hotel and Accommodation and Passenger Transport, Education and Government, Utility and Other Merchant Categories. Fee structures in each classification segment have distinct rules as they take area-specific business habits and customer transaction behavior into consideration.
• Processing Volume Tiers: The volume of FANF fees is largely based on the processing volume managed by the merchant. Visa establishes volume thresholds through which it links payment values to related fee values. The 2025 fee scheme is retrogressive in that the overall transaction volume increases, thus lowering the cost per location.
• Number of Marchant Locations: Payment terminal positions and the methods of acceptance in use affect FANF fee calculations significantly. The fee structure distinguishes between physical locations (brick-and-mortar establishments), electronic channels of commerce, and mail/telephone order channels. Each payment location has its official fee structure that includes more detailed category distinctions for physical sites than electronic payment channels.
• Acceptance Environment: Visa distinguishes between processing environments in card-present face-to-face transactions and those transpiring card-not-present from Internet sources or phone and mail communication. Several environment businesses will find composite fee estimates from Visa as a function of their specific acceptance profile.

The 2025 FANF Fee Schedule

As of 2025, Visa continues to have a tiered fee system for FANF computation. The prevailing fee schedule depends on the merchant category and volumes. For brick-and-mortar locations processing under $5,000 per month in Visa, the quarterly fee is $15.00 per location. The fee increases with increasing processing volume, to a high of $350.00 per quarter per location for merchants processing over $2,000,000 per month.

Restaurant businesses have a similar format but with slightly reduced fees on most levels. Grocery and supermarket traders enjoy the best rates in the physical location category, while hotels and accommodation businesses are charged marginally higher rates. Other merchant types typically pay the highest fees in the physical location structure.

For the e-commerce merchants, FANF pricing starts at $20.00 every quarter for companies that process below $50,000 per month and rises to $8,800.00 for companies with over $80 million in monthly Visa volume. Mail-order and telephone-order companies benefit from slightly lower rates compared to pure e-commerce channels in all the volume levels.

Volume Aggregation in FANF Calculations

The 2025 FANF evaluation includes advanced volume aggregation rules that have a substantial effect on fee calculations. Multiple locations under the same ownership operated by merchants may be eligible for volume aggregation if they satisfy certain requirements set by Visa.

To be eligible for aggregation benefits by volume, merchants must use the same Taxpayer Identification Number at all locations, process under the same merchant category codes, and have one acquiring relationship. When these are met, the total processing volume may determine the fee tier applicable in place of fees being calculated by individual location volume.

This aggregation feature is especially beneficial to franchise operations, retail chains, and multi-unit food service operations that would otherwise have to pay higher per-location fees because of smaller individual processing volumes. The aggregation provision effectively acknowledges the combined scale of the operation instead of dealing with each location as a standalone entity.

International Transaction Considerations

The 2025 FANF structure also has its terminology for foreign transactions and cross-border merchants. International card-accepting US merchants usually are charged under standard domestic schedules, and non-US merchants accepting US-issued Visa cards are charged a reformed FANF structure.

Cross-border e-commerce imposes specific complexity on FANF calculations as the fees depend upon the merchant domicile country, the issuing region of the cardholder, and the settlement currency. Visa’s calculation for global FANF accounts for these parameters to come up with fee levels appropriate enough to bring about consistency among worldwide markets while addressing regional processing peculiarities accordingly.

Furthermore, multinational corporations that have presences in two or more jurisdictions need to deal with intricate domicile determinations that influence their FANF obligations. The geography of payment processing, headquarters location, and principal place of business determine these.

Corporate Structure Impact on FANF Assessment

In 2025, business FANF is pretty much dependent on the organizational structure of an enterprise. Parent Subsidiary Considerations: By volume aggregation, fee calculation Parent-subsidiary affiliation is an exception though due to particular consideration (per legal and tax personnel).

Individual separate legal identities, each having its own Taxpayer Identification Number may be treated separately but structures limited to common ownership (within a holding company paradigm) are subject to special treatment.

Visa will consider requests by parent corporations with a controlling interest (for example, they may own 51 percent or more) in a subsidiary for approval on an organizational relationship level for FANF purposes Provided it gets approved, this execution should allow enterprise-wide volume aggregation that will further drive down the fixed per-location fee across the family of companies. This accommodation reflects the economic universe of effectively related entities on a single control plane.

A special problem in Franchises is the measurement of FANF for franchise operations The franchisee and its use a common brand and use the same system but the franchisor does not allow volume aggregation except for strategic arrangements where the franchiser is merchant of record to facilitate an individual franchisee account.

Seasonal Business Considerations

The 2025 FANF format includes seasoning provisions for businesses with seasonal volume fluctuations. Operations that are dependent on tourism, holiday-themed retailers, and educational institutions may witness extreme process volume variations that affect their FANF tier status.

Visa’s seasonal merchant strategy is compatible with sensible quarter-to-quarter averaging of transaction volumes to determine fair fee brackets. The method avoids subjecting businesses to unfairly high fees during off-seasons while ensuring fair measurement at high seasons. The quarterly billing schedule supports this by measuring the business over three months instead of reacting to month-to-month volatilities.

Seasonal merchants can take advantage of having regular processing relationships during the year instead of closing down merchant accounts during low seasons. Having continuity in place allows more advantageous volume averaging and avoids reactivation fees or new account setup costs that otherwise might cancel out any FANF benefits of closing down temporary accounts.

FANF Optimization Strategies

Several strategic strategies can maximize FANF costs for merchants in 2025. Merchant account consolidation is one of the best ways, specifically for multiple-location or multiple-channel-of-sale businesses. With a common processing relationship under a single merchant identification number, companies leverage their volume aggregation potential throughout the enterprise.

Planning for corporate structure provides a further optimization route. In creating new business units or subsidiaries, keeping identical ownership structures and tax identification intact can retain volume aggregation abilities. Also, in acquiring existing companies, processing them under the parent entity’s processing relationship may bring FANF savings.

Processor choice also affects FANF results. Although the fee structure itself is determined by Visa, payment processors differ in their implementation strategies, especially in terms of volume aggregation functionality and reporting transparency. Choosing a processor with advanced FANF management capabilities and applicable experience in the merchant’s industry vertical can help optimize fees more effectively.

FANF Reporting and Reconciliation

Proper management of FANF charges necessitates a good understanding of how such fees show up on merchant statements as well as in processing reports. Payment processors in 2025 must properly split FANF charges as Visa network fees and not include them in catch-all processing charges or markup classifications.

The quarterly timing of assessment (January, April, July, October) poses cash flow issues for merchants, especially where fees rise because of volume growth in processing or tier reclassification. Detailed reconciliation procedures should confirm that FANF assessments reflect the merchant’s current processing profile, location number, and volume tier.

Merchants must have thorough records of processing volumes by location and channel so that FANF can be independently recalculated. Discrepancies can be referred to the processor to resolve errors of assessment forthwith, the correction of retroactive adjustments tending to diminish over time.

Comparison with Other Network Fees

Whereas FANF is Visa’s model for fixed network fees, other payment networks have equivalent but different fee models. Mastercard’s Merchant Location Fee operates on a similar tiered basis by processing volume and number of locations, although with different levels of thresholds and per-location charges. American Express charges a flat Network Fee that is primarily dependent on merchant category and annual volume instead of location number.

Discover’s Data Usage Fee uses an entirely different methodology, using transaction volume as opposed to dollar volume as the primary driver. This potentially creates optimization opportunities for merchants with larger average ticket sizes, because the transaction volume may be relatively low despite the very high volume of processing.

Having such an understanding allows merchants to holistically assess their payment acceptance strategy by the network. In certain instances, highlighting specific card brands in customer engagement may bring network fee benefits depending on the merchant’s individual processing profile and mix of customers.

Evolution of FANF Since Introduction

Since its launch in 2012, the FANF has evolved through some incremental changes that reached their culmination in the 2025 framework. Early implementation was centered on physical stores with comparatively straightforward e-commerce arrangements. Later revisions added more sophistication in digital channel evaluation as online commerce became more sophisticated and diverse.

More recent improvements have added more granularity to volume tiers, especially in the mid-market space, providing more graduated fee progression as merchants expand. Greater differentiation among merchant categories has also arisen, acknowledging the unique processing habits and economics of different industry verticals.

The 2025 framework is the most advanced to date, with further regard for omnichannel settings that combine physical and digital commerce. This development mirrors the payment industry’s more general trend toward channel convergence and unified commerce experiences.

Common FANF Misconceptions

Some long-standing myths about FANF still exist among merchants in 2025. Perhaps most prevalent is the assumption that FANF rates are negotiable like processing markup fees. The FANF framework is set consistently by Visa, with processors acting as collection agents instead of pricing authorities for these fees.

A second common misinterpretation relates to the interrelationship between FANF and interchange fees. A few merchants erroneously think that FANF substituted interchange fees after the Durbin Amendment when both fee structures coexist in tandem. FANF is present as a fixed charge in addition to percentage-based interchange fees, depending on the type of card and acceptance.

FANF’s assessment timing also confuses some merchants, who anticipating monthly fees relative to their processing statements. The quarterly assessment plan produces larger periodic fees instead of smaller monthly fees, even surprising those merchants that are used to fully distributed monthly processing fees.

Conclusion

The Fixed Acquirer Network Fee remains a significant source of payment processing charges for Visa card-accepting merchants in 2025. By being aware of the tiered structure, method of calculation, and optimization procedures explained in this guide, merchants are in a better position to optimize and potentially reduce their FANF fees.

FANF calculations are intricate and necessitate ongoing monitoring of acceptance channels, merchant reports, and volume of processing. Seasoned payment experts familiar with the subtleties of every FANF examination could aid merchants in charging correctly and maximizing fee opportunities.

As payment technologies and regulatory environments evolve, staying current with changes to network fee structures, such as FANF, will remain an important aspect of successful cost management for merchants of all sizes.