PCI Compliance Fee

PCI Compliance Fee

A PCI compliance fee is meant to cover the costs of complying with PCI DSS standards. It is a fee that is sometimes passed from the merchant account provider to the account holder.

All merchant accounts and any company that processes credit card information must be PCI compliant. A PCI compliance fee is one way a company covers the expenses of keeping their PCI compliant status.

What is PCI Compliance?

The Payment Card Industry (PCI) set forth a list of standards all companies that deal with credit card data must abide by. These standards are known as Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). 

A company that meets all the standards put forth by the PCI DSS is known to be PCI compliant. 

These standards ensure all sensitive credit card and cardholder data are protected and secure. 

Being PCI compliant means following basic safety protocols such as instituting firewalls, using encryption, installing and using antivirus software, regularly updating software, etc. 

Although being PCI compliant is not difficult per se, it does involve some extra steps and expenses the company must pay for, and thus can increase the costs of processing credit card data. 

Is a PCI Compliance Fee Necessary?

Some merchant accounts or credit card processing companies charge PCI compliance fees to their customers.

A PCI compliance fee is an additional fee that is not standard. You may be able to avoid having to pay a PCI compliance fee by choosing a merchant account provider that doesn’t charge it. 

All merchant accounts must be PCI compliant, or they will have to pay a PCI non-compliance fee, as well as risk getting their sensitive customer data lost or stolen. 

However, not all merchant accounts charge a PCI compliance fee. Whatever extra money it costs to comply with the PCI DSS standards is simply bundled into the rest of the payment structure.