The short answer
When a corporate card, purchasing card, business card, or government card is presented, Visa and Mastercard allow the merchant to submit extra data fields along with the authorization. If those fields are present and valid, the card network prices the transaction at a lower interchange category — often 50–150 basis points lower than retail interchange. Level 2 is the minimum enhanced data tier (ship-to, tax amount, customer reference). Level 3 is the full tier (line-item detail, unit prices, UPCs, discount codes). Operators whose customers use corporate cards are leaving money on the table every month they don't submit this data.
Level 1 vs Level 2 vs Level 3
- Level 1: the default. Merchant name, amount, date, card number. This is what consumer card transactions run on. No enhanced data.
- Level 2: adds tax amount, tax exempt flag, customer code / purchase order number, ship-to postal code. Supported by Visa Business/Corporate/Purchasing cards and Mastercard Business/Corporate/Purchasing cards.
- Level 3: adds per-line-item data: item description, item commodity code, UPC/SKU, unit of measure, quantity, unit cost, total per line, discount amount per line, freight amount, duty amount. Required for best interchange on large-ticket B2B.
Interchange savings — the math
On a Visa Business Card running at retail interchange, the rate is ~2.40% + $0.10. Submit Level 2 data and the qualifying category drops to ~1.85% + $0.10 — a 55 bps savings. Submit Level 3 on the same card and the qualifying category drops further to ~1.55% + $0.10 — a 85 bps savings vs. Level 1. On a $500 B2B sale, that's $4.25 saved per transaction automatically. Operators doing $200k/month in B2B volume capture $8,500/month by getting Level 3 right.
What operators need to know
- Your gateway or processor has to support it. Stripe does not support Level 3 natively (Level 2 only, launched 2023). Authorize.net + CyberSource do. NMI supports both levels. Square does not support either. Check your gateway documentation before assuming you can submit the data.
- The card matters. Not every business card qualifies. Corporate, Purchasing, Business, and Government cards qualify. Small-business rewards cards sometimes qualify for Level 2 but not Level 3. Check the card BIN on authorization.
- Data must be valid, not just present. Tax amount must match the purchase. Line-items must sum to the transaction total. Customer code can't be a placeholder. Invalid Level 2/3 submissions get "downgraded" back to Level 1 and you eat the higher rate. Most processors report downgrade rates monthly — anything over 10% means a data-quality problem.
- B2B operators and government suppliers see the biggest wins. DTC consumer ecommerce rarely benefits; you aren't running corporate cards. But if you sell to businesses, agencies, or government buyers, enabling Level 3 is one of the highest-leverage optimizations you can make.
How multiflow handles Level 2/3
We route eligible cards through a Level 2/3-capable gateway (Authorize.net, NMI, CyberSource) at the parent merchant account layer. Line-item data flows from your cart automatically — no extra dev work from you if you're on WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, or a major custom cart. For operators whose portfolio includes B2B sub-brands, this alone pays for the multiflow platform fee and then some.