Visa chargeback reason codes for Shopify merchants
A chargeback lands in the Shopify admin labeled "Product Not Received." Behind that label sits a number, Visa's own dispute condition 13.1, and that number is what your acquirer actually reports, what the evidence requirements are built around, and what feeds (or does not feed) the ratio Visa monitors.
Visa sorts every one of its dispute conditions into four categories, Fraud (10.x), Authorization (11.x), Processing Errors (12.x), and Consumer Disputes (13.x), numbered from 10.1 through 13.9 in its own Dispute Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants (June 2024 edition, checked July 22, 2026). A card-not-present Shopify store sees a handful of those numbers with any regularity, not all of them. This is the reference for that handful.
The four categories, and where a Shopify store actually lives
Most of Visa's own list assumes a card in someone's hand. Conditions 10.1 and 10.2, the EMV liability-shift fraud codes, require a chip card that either was not read at a chip-enabled terminal or was processed without full chip data reaching Visa. Condition 10.3, other fraud in a card-present environment, needs a key-entered transaction with no card imprint taken. Condition 11.1, the Card Recovery Bulletin code, applies when a merchant skipped a required authorization check against a listed payment credential at physical point of sale. None of that happens at a Shopify checkout with no terminal in the room.
Most of what remains in Authorization and Processing Errors is a back-office failure rather than a customer complaint: 11.2 and 11.3 (no authorization obtained, or a transaction settled outside its processing window, with 11.3 replacing the older 12.1 for transactions completed on or after April 13, 2024), and 12.2 through 12.5 and 12.7 (wrong transaction code, currency, account number, amount, or invalid authorization data). A Shopify Payments transaction that authorizes and settles automatically rarely trips these. The one Processing Errors condition that does show up with any frequency is 12.6, split into 12.6.1 Duplicate Processing and 12.6.2 Paid by Other Means, for a cardholder who says a single purchase was charged twice or paid for two different ways.
That leaves fraud condition 10.4 and most of the Consumer Disputes category as the codes worth actually building a process around.
The six codes worth building a process around
These are Visa's own numbers and definitions, drawn from the same guide, not a paraphrase from a secondary blog.
| Visa code | Category | What the cardholder alleges | Evidence that answers it | Counts toward VAMP even if you win? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
10.4 | Fraud | Did not authorize or take part in a transaction conducted in a card-absent environment | AVS/CVV match results, Visa Secure authentication at checkout, or two prior undisputed transactions meeting Compelling Evidence 3.0 | Only the CE 3.0-qualifying fraud report is excluded; everything else counts |
13.1 | Consumer Dispute | Merchandise or services were not received by the expected date | Carrier tracking with an actual delivery scan, delivery address matched to the order, signature capture where available | Yes |
13.2 | Consumer Dispute | Withdrew permission for a recurring charge, or the account had already closed | Subscription terms accepted at signup, cancellation log, renewal notice, evidence of usage after the disputed renewal | Yes |
13.3 | Consumer Dispute | The item did not match its description, or arrived damaged or defective | Product page and description as of the purchase date, invoice detail, repair or replacement records | Yes |
13.6 | Consumer Dispute | A promised credit or refund was never processed | Proof the refund was issued and dated, or documentation that no refund was actually due | Yes |
12.6 | Processing Error | Charged twice for one purchase (12.6.1), or paid by another method as well (12.6.2) | Records showing two separate purchases, or that the card charge was reversed once another payment method was used | Yes |
None of these carries a fixed response window in Visa's own material. What the guide actually says is that "each step in the dispute cycle has a defined time limit during which action can be taken," and that the limit "may vary depending on your acquirer." Shopify's admin shows a due date per dispute, typically 7 to 21 days after filing (checked July 22, 2026), and Stripe's dispute documentation gives close to the same range. Read the date on the actual dispute record. Nothing in this table overrides it.
10.4 is the one code with a formal shortcut
Condition 10.4 is different from the other five, because Visa built a defined test into it. Compelling Evidence 3.0 asks for two of the cardholder's prior transactions, settled 120 to 365 days before the dispute, with no active fraud report, matching the disputed order on at least two qualifying data elements such as device ID, device fingerprint, or IP address. Meet it, and Visa's own guide says "documentation meeting the Compelling Evidence criteria" resolves the 10.4 case directly. How Visa Compelling Evidence 3.0 works for Shopify orders covers the full criteria and where a Shopify store actually holds each element.
No equivalent shortcut exists for 13.1, 13.2, 13.3, 13.6, or 12.6. Those five are argued the ordinary way, evidence matched to the specific allegation rather than a data-matching test, which is most of what chargeback representment explained without the vendor spin walks through in general. Reclaim reads the code off the dispute, decides which of the two paths applies, and assembles the matching evidence from the store's own order history, at no install cost and no cut of what comes back.
Which of these actually move your VAMP ratio
Winning any of the five ordinary-evidence codes recovers the transaction amount. None of them come out of the count Visa itself is watching.
The ratio itself is a count, fraud reports (TC40) plus disputes (TC15), divided by settled transactions (TC05), and an entry is made the moment the issuer files it, not the moment your acquirer credits you back. Even the 10.4 shortcut only helps the ratio when the underlying fraud report specifically qualifies for CE 3.0. A 10.4 case argued and won on ordinary AVS and CVV evidence, without meeting the CE 3.0 matching test, stays in the count the same as the other five. That distinction, between recovering money and moving the ratio, is the subject of winning a chargeback does not fix your dispute ratio in full.
The honest part
Two limits are worth stating plainly.
Shopify's own admin does not show you Visa's numbers. It sorts disputes into eight labels of its own, Fraudulent, Unrecognized, Duplicate, Subscription Canceled, Product Not Received, Product Unacceptable, Credit Not Processed, and General, and the mapping onto Visa's conditions is close but not exact. "Duplicate" could be 12.6.1 or 12.6.2 behind the scenes. "Credit Not Processed" could be 13.6 or the adjacent 13.7, cancelled merchandise or services where the credit never posted, a code this reference leaves out of the main table because it overlaps 13.6 closely enough that the evidence is the same either way. Working from the Shopify label alone is fine for most cases. The underlying number matters only when it changes what evidence you need, which for most of this list it does not.
The other limit is that the issuer chooses the code, not you, and the choice is not always the most accurate description of what actually happened. A customer who forgot about a subscription can land under 10.4 fraud just as easily as under 13.2, and matching your evidence to the wrong allegation does not fix a mislabeled dispute. Visa also revises this list on its own schedule: the merchandise-not-received and subscription-cancellation conditions picked up additional evidence categories for disputes processed on or after October 19, 2024, and 11.3 replaced the older 12.1 for transactions completed after April 13, 2024. Confirm the current guide before building a permanent workflow on any single version of this table, mine included.
Frequently asked questions
What are Visa's four dispute categories?
Fraud (conditions 10.1 to 10.5), Authorization (11.1 to 11.3), Processing Errors (12.2 to 12.7), and Consumer Disputes (13.1 to 13.9), as defined in Visa's Dispute Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants. A card-not-present Shopify store mostly sees fraud condition 10.4 and a handful of the Consumer Disputes codes.
What Visa reason code applies to a product-not-received chargeback?
Condition 13.1, Merchandise/Services Not Received. The evidence that answers it is carrier tracking showing an actual delivery scan and a delivery address matching the order, not an order confirmation or invoice.
Does winning a chargeback under Compelling Evidence 3.0 remove it from my VAMP ratio?
Only if the underlying TC40 fraud report qualifies for CE 3.0, one of exactly two exclusions Visa's fact sheet lists for the ratio. A 10.4 dispute won on ordinary AVS or CVV evidence, without meeting the CE 3.0 matching test, stays in the count like any other won dispute.
Does my Shopify admin show the Visa reason code number?
No. Shopify sorts disputes into its own eight labels, Fraudulent, Unrecognized, Duplicate, Subscription Canceled, Product Not Received, Product Unacceptable, Credit Not Processed, and General, which map closely but not perfectly onto Visa's numbered conditions.
What to pull from your own dispute history
Sort last quarter's disputes by the label Shopify gave you, then match each one back to the Visa condition in the table above rather than assuming the label tells you everything. If 12.6 duplicate charges or 13.6 missing credits show up more than once or twice, that is a refund-processing gap, not a fraud problem, and it is fixable in your own workflow this week, before the next one becomes a dispute instead of a support ticket.