Getting Started

Merchant Responsibility

General guidelines for accepting Visa

Before you begin accepting Visa, be sure to follow these guidelines for merchants: 
 

• All Visa accepting merchants have a responsibility to adhere to all federal and state laws. As it relates to accepting Visa products, merchants must accept Visa products for legal transactions only.
• Merchants that sell age-restricted products, such as alcohol and tobacco, must have in place processes and controls to ensure that all associated laws are honored.
• Merchants should be aware that possession of a Visa card or submission of Visa account information does not signify that the cardholder is of legal age to purchase age-restricted products.
• The issuance of Visa cards is not restricted to individuals over 18 years of age.

 
All merchants and processors participating in the Visa payment system that store, process or transmit Visa cardholder account and/or transaction information must meet the minimum data security requirements as defined by the Account Information Security (AIS) program, the two most important principles of which are, ‘Don’t store the data unless you absolutely need it,’ and ‘If you need to store the data, encrypt it.’