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Merchant Category Code (MCC) Lookup

Search by code or by industry. More useful than knowing what a code is, is knowing why it affects money — see below.

Look up a Merchant Category Code

The 63 codes you meet most often. This is a quick reference, not the full ISO 18245 list (which runs to about a thousand).

MCC	Category	Notes
`4111`	Local Commuter Transport	Metro, ferry, commuter rail
`4121`	Taxicabs and Limousines
`4131`	Bus Lines
`4511`	Airlines, Air Carriers	Individual carriers also use 3000–3299
`4722`	Travel Agencies
`4784`	Tolls and Bridge Fees
`4814`	Telecommunication Services
`4899`	Cable, Satellite, Streaming	Streaming subscriptions often land here
`4900`	Utilities
`5111`	Stationery, Office Supplies
`5300`	Wholesale Clubs	Costco, Sam's Club
`5310`	Discount Stores
`5311`	Department Stores
`5411`	Grocery Stores, Supermarkets	The most commonly rewarded category
`5462`	Bakeries
`5499`	Misc Food Stores
`5541`	Service Stations
`5542`	Automated Fuel Dispensers	Unattended pumps
`5651`	Family Clothing Stores
`5661`	Shoe Stores
`5691`	Men's and Women's Clothing
`5732`	Electronics Stores
`5734`	Computer Software Stores
`5812`	Eating Places, Restaurants
`5813`	Drinking Places	Some issuers apply extra risk rules
`5814`	Fast Food Restaurants
`5816`	Digital Goods – Games
`5817`	Digital Goods – Applications
`5818`	Digital Goods – Large Merchant	Aggregator platforms
`5912`	Drug Stores, Pharmacies
`5921`	Package Stores – Beer, Wine, Liquor
`5940`	Bicycle Shops
`5941`	Sporting Goods Stores
`5942`	Book Stores
`5944`	Jewelry, Watches	High interchange, high risk scrutiny
`5945`	Hobby, Toy and Game Shops
`5977`	Cosmetic Stores
`5999`	Miscellaneous Retail	The catch-all bucket
`6010`	Financial Institutions – Manual Cash	Cash advance rules apply
`6011`	Financial Institutions – ATM Cash	Interest accrues from day one
`6012`	Financial Institutions – Merchandise
`6051`	Non-Financial – Foreign Currency, Crypto	Frequently declined by issuer policy
`6300`	Insurance Sales, Underwriting
`7011`	Lodging – Hotels, Resorts	Common pre-auth scenario
`7230`	Beauty and Barber Shops
`7298`	Health and Beauty Spas
`7311`	Advertising Services
`7372`	Computer Programming, IT Services
`7512`	Automobile Rental Agency	Common pre-auth scenario
`7523`	Parking Lots and Garages
`7832`	Motion Picture Theaters
`7841`	Video Tape Rental
`7995`	Betting, Casino Gambling	Usually blocked by issuer policy
`7997`	Membership Clubs, Golf
`7999`	Recreation Services
`8011`	Doctors and Physicians
`8062`	Hospitals
`8211`	Elementary and Secondary Schools
`8220`	Colleges, Universities
`8398`	Charitable Organizations
`8999`	Professional Services
`9311`	Tax Payments
`9399`	Government Services
No matching MCC

An MCC decides three things

Interchange. Supermarkets, fuel and utilities sit in lower brackets; travel and jewellery in higher ones. What the merchant pays per transaction is largely set by the MCC.

Rewards. "5% back on dining" is a rule on MCC, not on the merchant's name. That is why a restaurant inside a hotel often earns hotel rewards instead of dining rewards — the whole property bills under one code.

Blocks and risk. Codes like 7995 gambling and 6051 foreign currency / crypto are commonly declined outright by issuer policy, and what comes back is usually a generic 05 that explains nothing.

Who fixes a wrong category? The MCC is assigned by the acquirer when the merchant is boarded — not by the issuer, and not per transaction. So a mis-categorised merchant is mis-categorised for every cardholder, and stays that way until someone amends the boarding record. When a cardholder disputes missing rewards, the acquirer is the only party that can change it; the issuer genuinely cannot re-categorise someone else's merchant.

Where it sits in the message

MCC travels in DE18 (merchant type), four digits, and is echoed in clearing records. It is also one of the fields worth logging on every transaction: without it, "why was this declined?" and "why no cashback?" become unanswerable after the fact.

The MCC moves between messages, and the tables do not

The merchant category code does not live in one place. On the authorization leg it travels in DE18; in the clearing record for the same transaction it is in DE26. Nothing about the value changes — the field number does.

This matters when you reconcile. A report built off DE18 and a report built off DE26 should agree on the category of every transaction, and when they do not, the usual cause is a mapping that reads the authorization field number against a clearing file or the reverse. The code itself is almost never wrong; the address is.

The other thing worth knowing before you trust any MCC list, including this one: the assignment of a merchant to a category is made by the acquirer, not by the network and not by the merchant. Two shops selling identical goods can carry different codes, and a code can change without the merchant doing anything. So an MCC is evidence about how the acquirer classified the business, not a fact about the business. Where the field sits in each message family is set out in authorization versus clearing.

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