What Is the Merchant Account Fixed Acquirer Network Fee (FANF)?

The Fixed Acquirer Network Fee, commonly abbreviated FANF, is a monthly fee that Visa charges to every acquiring bank that processes Visa transactions. The acquirer passes this charge through to its merchants, where it appears as a line item on the monthly processing statement. FANF was introduced in April 2012 and remains one of the more misunderstood fees on a merchant statement in 2026, partly because it does not appear on every statement under the same name and partly because its structure is unusual compared to other processing costs.

How FANF Works

Unlike interchange fees, which are calculated as a percentage of each transaction, FANF is a flat monthly charge assessed per merchant location. Visa publishes a fee schedule that varies based on two factors: the merchant’s acceptance environment (card-present or card-not-present) and the merchant’s Visa transaction volume or number of locations.

For card-present merchants such as retail stores and restaurants, FANF is tiered by the number of locations operating under a single merchant identification number. A single-location card-present merchant pays a small flat fee, typically in the range of $2 to $5 per month. The fee scales upward for merchants with multiple locations, though the per-location cost generally decreases as location count increases.

For card-not-present merchants, which includes e-commerce businesses, the fee structure is based on gross Visa transaction volume rather than location count. A small online seller processing under $8,000 per month in Visa volume might see a FANF charge of a few dollars, while a high-volume e-commerce operation can face a charge of $40 or more per month.

Why Visa Charges FANF

Visa states that FANF supports the maintenance and improvement of its global payment network, including fraud prevention systems, transaction routing infrastructure, tokenization services, and network security upgrades. In practice, FANF functions as a fixed infrastructure charge that ensures every merchant accepting Visa contributes to network costs regardless of how many transactions they process in a given month. Before FANF existed, a merchant with a Visa-enabled account that processed zero transactions in a month contributed nothing toward network costs despite maintaining access to the network.

How FANF Appears on Your Statement

Processors label FANF differently. Common names include “Fixed Acquirer Network Fee,” “FANF,” “Visa Fixed Fee,” “Visa FANF,” or simply “Network Fee.” Some processors bundle it into a broader “network fees” or “assessment fees” line item, making it harder to identify. On an interchange-plus statement, FANF should be broken out as a separate line. On a tiered or flat-rate statement, it may be buried within the overall monthly charges.

It is worth noting that FANF is a Visa-specific fee. Mastercard does not currently charge an equivalent fixed monthly fee, though Mastercard does assess its own set of network access fees that appear under different names. American Express and Discover have their own fee structures that do not include a direct FANF equivalent.

Strategies to Manage FANF Costs

Because FANF is set by Visa and not by your processor, you cannot negotiate it away. However, there are several ways to keep it as low as possible.

Consolidate merchant accounts where it makes sense. FANF is assessed per merchant account, so operating multiple accounts under separate MIDs when a single account would suffice can multiply the fee unnecessarily. However, do not consolidate accounts purely to save a few dollars on FANF if there are operational or risk-management reasons to keep them separate.

Verify the fee amount against Visa’s published schedule. Some processors mark up pass-through fees, including FANF, by adding a small pad on top of the actual Visa charge. A processor on true interchange-plus pricing should pass FANF through at cost. If the amount on your statement does not match Visa’s published rate for your volume tier, ask your processor to explain the difference.

Review your acceptance environment classification. If your business is classified as card-not-present but you actually conduct most of your Visa transactions in person with a terminal, you may be in a higher FANF bracket than necessary. Work with your processor to ensure the classification matches your actual business.

The Bottom Line

FANF is a relatively small but unavoidable cost of accepting Visa cards. For most single-location merchants it amounts to only a few dollars per month, and it is not worth losing sleep over. Where it becomes meaningful is for multi-location businesses or high-volume e-commerce operations, where the fee can scale into the tens of dollars and where verifying that the processor is passing it through at cost is a worthwhile exercise. Understanding what FANF is and confirming that it is being billed correctly is part of maintaining a clean, transparent processing statement.