Orca

Mastercard Decline Response Codes (partial)

38 codes that cover most of what an originator sees. Each one carries the decision: retry or stop, how long the receiving institution has to send it, what the guidance rests on, and when it was last checked.

What the tier labels mean, and how far this page has been checked
Draft
An agent wrote it from published material and nobody has checked it. Use it as a lead to confirm, never on its own as the basis for a retry, a return, a deadline or a compliance decision.
Corroborated
A validator found the same answer in one or more named public sources; the class in brackets says how strong they are. "Secondary sources only" means bank, processor or industry guides and nothing from the operator or regulator. Corroborated does not mean checked against the governing rulebook, so confirm before you act.
Verified
A person checked it against Mastercard's own current text and recorded the edition and date. The strongest tier here, and still reference material, not legal or compliance advice.

On a rail fact, every detail line names the section or instrument it rests on and whether that is a rule, a law, operator guidance, or observed practice.

Known gaps in this build

Not yet covered: partial list: these are the 38 DE 39 decline values that the Transaction Processing Rules name in section 4.5.5 (Table 23); Mastercard's full set of response codes and their valid pairing with Merchant Advice Codes are in the Dual and Single Message System technical specifications, which are not public to Orca; non-decline DE 39 values that the Transaction Processing Rules mention (00 and 85 for an open account, 10 partial approval, 06, 17 and 32 on reversals, 34 for a merchant fraud cancellation) and the value 31 named only in the Europe issuer failure-rate rule have no record; the meaning of each code is taken from Mastercard's label in Table 23 and from the rules that name the code; the definitions in the technical specifications have not been read; Table 23 sorts the codes for transit debt recovery and first ride risk claims only; how an issuer should choose among them, and the common decline guidance in the Enhance Digital Commerce Approval Rates Operational Guide, are not public to Orca; in the EEA, the UK and Gibraltar a customer may route through a registered switch of its choice, and the response codes that switch defines (including its soft decline for Strong Customer Authentication) are not described here.