Payments
Soft decline
Updated
A soft decline is a card refusal about this attempt rather than the card itself, such as low funds or a bank outage, so the same card can succeed if you try again later.
Banks refuse card payments for two kinds of reasons. A soft decline says something about the moment: the balance is short today, the daily limit was hit, the bank wanted extra authentication, or its systems were down. The card number is still good, so a later attempt can be approved.
Visa's rules sort decline codes into categories. Codes such as 51 (not sufficient funds), 61 (exceeds amount limit) and 91 (issuer unavailable) sit in category 2, "issuer cannot approve at this time", and Visa permits up to 20 reattempts in 30 days for that category. Retrying past that limit is what draws excessive retry fees.
The right retry depends on the reason. A funds decline is worth retrying around payday, a bank outage within hours, and an authentication request only once the customer is present to complete 3D Secure. On PlatformDTC, a subscription renewal declined for insufficient funds is retried up to six times over the following weeks, moved onto the subscriber's payday when one is close, and never more than once a day.
Frequently asked questions
- What is an example of a soft decline?
- Insufficient funds (Visa code 51), an exceeded spending limit (61), a request for authentication, or the bank being temporarily unavailable (91). In each case the card is still valid and a later attempt can work.
- How many times can I retry a soft decline?
- Visa's rules allow up to 20 reattempts in 30 days for its category 2, 3 and 4 decline codes. Mastercard allows 10 retries in 24 hours and 35 in 30 days on soft declines before fees, according to PayPal's guidance.
- Is do not honor a soft decline?
- It is ambiguous. Visa puts code 05 in its generic category 4, which permits retries, but the bank gave no reason. A small number of spaced attempts followed by a request for a new card is the usual approach.