Mastercard Excessive Chargeback Program (ECP) Explained for 2026: Thresholds, Fees, Timelines, and How to Get Out

Feb 11, 2026

If your support inbox is quiet but your chargeback ratio keeps climbing, it can feel like you’re driving with a foggy windshield. That’s what Mastercard excessive chargeback risk looks like in real life: you don’t just lose revenue, you also risk getting pulled into Mastercard’s monitoring program.

Mastercard’s Excessive Chargeback Program (ECP), one of the primary chargeback monitoring programs impacting card-not-present merchants, is designed to pressure merchants through their acquirer to ensure they stay within limits and reduce disputes quickly. In 2026, the mechanics are mostly the same as recent years: monthly measurement, tiered thresholds, and escalating assessments if you stay above limits.

This guide breaks down the thresholds, fee path, timelines, and a practical plan to exit.

What the Mastercard ECP is, and how Mastercard measures you

Think of ECP like a speed limit for disputes. One fast month might not get you pulled over, but repeated speeding will.

ECP monitors chargebacks at the merchant identification number (MID) level using two core inputs:

• Chargeback ratio: chargebacks divided by sales (typically looking at the prior month’s activity; note that a 1.0% chargeback ratio equals 100 basis points).
• Chargeback count: total number of chargebacks in the month.

Mastercard uses tiers that reflect how far over the line you are, based on specific chargeback thresholds:

• CMM (Chargeback-Monitored Merchant): Often referenced as the early warning tier. In practice, merchants can be flagged when they exceed about 1.0% chargeback ratio or 100+ chargebacks in a month (depending on reporting and how your acquirer frames it).
• Excessive Chargeback Merchant (ECM): Typically triggered when you hit about 1.5% to 2.99% and 100 to 299 chargebacks, for two consecutive months.
• High Excessive Chargeback Merchant (HECM): Typically triggered when you hit 3.0%+ and 300+ chargebacks, for two consecutive months.

Those “two consecutive months” details matter. A single spike from a shipping meltdown, a billing descriptor change, or a fraud burst might hurt, but repeat performance is what usually locks you into a tier.

Mastercard also runs a related fraud monitoring program that tracks the fraud-to-sales ratio (rather than just disputes), which can result in Excessive Fraud Merchant status.

If you want a plain-language definition you can share internally, this Mastercard ECP glossary overview is a helpful reference.

Fees and assessments: what ECP can cost, and when it starts costing you

The painful part of ECP is that monthly fines can grow while you’re still trying to diagnose the cause. Mastercard assessments are typically billed to the acquirer, which then passes them down to the merchant, so it shows up as “processor pressure” first.

A commonly cited ECP pattern for monthly fines looks like this (amounts and enforcement can vary by acquirer and region, so treat this as a practical planning view, not a contract):

At the high end (High Excessive Chargeback Merchant, or HECM), some industry references also mention extra per-chargeback costs above the threshold, along with the Issuer Recovery Assessment as an additional financial risk, which can make a bad month even worse.

The Acquirer Chargeback Monitoring Program timeline that catches teams off guard

ECP isn’t a single event, it’s a monthly cycle:

• Trigger: commonly two consecutive months above the tier’s thresholds (Excessive Chargeback Merchant, or ECM; or HECM).
• Monthly fines: can begin after you’ve remained in the program, then increase as consecutive months stack up.
• Extensions: in some cases, merchants can request a time-limited extension under strict chargeback time limits to pause paying monthly fines while they work a remediation plan. If you don’t get back under thresholds by the end, you may owe the accumulated amounts.

For a more formal example of how acquirers communicate ECP mechanics, this JPMorgan Mastercard ECP guide (PDF) shows the program’s core concepts and why your bank is strict once you’re flagged.

How to get out of Mastercard ECP in 2026 (without guessing)

Exiting is simple to say and hard to execute: you need to bring disputes down and keep them down long enough to clear the exit rule and avoid Excessive Chargeback Merchant status.

A commonly referenced exit standard is: stay below chargeback thresholds (under 1.5% and under 100 chargebacks) for three straight months. Once you do, you’re out.

No fancy narrative wins here. Mastercard cares about the numbers.

A realistic 30 to 90-day remediation plan

Most merchants get traction by treating chargebacks like a “leak” and fixing the biggest holes first. Understanding specific Mastercard reason codes and adhering to chargeback time limits during the dispute resolution process is essential, especially resolving issues before first presentment:

1. Stop preventable disputes before they become chargebacks. The fastest wins usually come from catching “I don’t recognize this,” “canceled recurring,” and “item not received” disputes early, then refunding or resolving in the small window before escalation.
2. Tighten your refund and cancellation paths. If customers can’t cancel in 30 seconds, banks become the cancel button. Make billing descriptors clear, send receipts, and confirm cancellations instantly.
3. Reduce duplicate and late fulfillment disputes. Shipping delays and missed delivery scans create disputes that look like fraud to issuers. Improve tracking comms, re-ship rules, and exception handling.
4. Tune fraud controls where they actually help. Use AVS/CVV checks, 3D Secure, and Mastercard Identity Check where appropriate, but don’t block good customers into frustration disputes.

Chargeback alerts are often the difference between “we tried” and “we lowered the ratio.” They give you an early warning from issuers so you can act while a refund still prevents a formal dispute from being filed. Chargebase’s own guidance on how teams use alerts to stay under network limits is laid out in how to keep chargeback rates low.

Where Chargebase fits when you need results fast

Chargebase is a chargeback prevention and recovery platform built for e-commerce and SaaS teams that can’t afford multi-week change cycles. It connects to your payment provider in about 2 minutes (no-code), then helps detect and prevent disputes before they post as chargebacks using chargeback prevention tools.

In practice, Chargebase can help you tap into major dispute prevention channels, including:

• Ethoca alerts (often used for Mastercard-related issuer alerts), with pay-per-alert pricing (commonly around $25 per alert) and fast enrollment windows (often up to 12 hours).
• Verifi alerts (Visa dispute resolution network) with pay-per-alert pricing (commonly around $15 per alert) and similar quick enrollment windows.
• RDR (Rapid Dispute Resolution) for rules-based, automated resolutions, often priced around $15 per alert, with enrollment that can take longer (commonly up to 5 days) and auto-refund behavior.

The point isn’t the brand names, it’s speed and consistency: real-time alerts, automation rules (Chargebase supports 10+ rules for RDR setups), and paying only when an alert is sent and useful. If you want a clearer picture of the Ethoca side, see what Ethoca is and how it helps prevent chargebacks.

For a remediation-focused view written specifically for this year, this 2026 Mastercard ECP remediation guide is worth reading alongside your acquirer’s requirements.

Conclusion

The Mastercard Excessive Chargeback Program is a monthly math test: chargeback ratio plus volume, measured repeatedly in basis points, with rising costs like monthly fines if you don’t correct course. To exit by 2026 and avoid merchant account termination or being placed on the MATCH list, you need fewer chargebacks for long enough to meet the exit window, along with chargeback prevention tools that work on real disputes, not theory. Chargeback monitoring programs are manageable through an improved dispute resolution process that handles pre-arbitration effectively. Staying below the thresholds for an Excessive Chargeback Merchant or High Excessive Chargeback Merchant requires constant vigilance over your acquirer relationship and fraud monitoring program metrics. Tools like alerts and automated resolution can cut disputes before they count, and Chargebase is built to do exactly that with fast setup and pay-per-alert pricing. If you’re already close to the line, the best time to act is before next month’s report locks in another bad cycle.