ISO 18245 is an ISO standard related to the management of Merchant Category Codes (MCC) in retail financial services.
ISO 18245: 2003 defines the code values used to classify merchants into specific categories according to the type of business, trade or service provided.
Making the use of merchant category codes mandatory in any situation is outside the scope of ISO 18245: 2003.
In merchant applications, the bank assigns an MCC to each merchant .
An MCC is 4 digits long. For example, MCC 0742 denotes the “Veterinary Services” sector.
A new MCC definition can be requested through ISO/TC68. New codes are generally reserved for merchant categories with annual revenue of at least USD 10 million .
- ISO/TC68: A technical committee within the International Organization for Standardization in Geneva, Switzerland, responsible for developing and maintaining international standards covering banking, securities and other financial services.
A few example MCC codes and their descriptions are shown below:
| MCC Code | MCC Description |
| 0742 | Veterinary Services |
| 0763 | Agricultural Cooperatives |
| 0780 | Landscaping and Horticultural Services |
1520 | General Contractors / Residential Buildings |
1711 | Heating, Plumbing, Air Conditioning Contractors |
1731 | Electrical Contractors |
1750 | Carpentry |
You can find Visa MCC details and the MCC list at the link below:
