The Aggregate Commercial Card Volume Behind Every Level 2 and Level 3 Transaction
The Nilson Report’s own tracking of US commercial cards, combining Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, put total commercial card purchase volume at $2.230 trillion in 2024, up 4.5% over 2023. That figure covers every commercial and purchasing card transaction across the networks, the full pool of volume Level 2 and Level 3 enhanced-data processing could apply to. A narrower, unpublished slice of that pool is what qualifies for one of those two rate tiers at any given time.
A separate, government-specific figure adds real scale on one slice of that volume: the GSA SmartPay program, described by GSA as the world’s largest government charge card and commercial payment solutions program, recorded $39.4 billion in total program spend for fiscal year 2025, averaging $480 per transaction, with $471 million in refunds earned by participating agencies and organizations that year.
Why the Level 2/Level 3 Split Itself Stays Unpublished
No network, processor, or industry publisher located in this research breaks out commercial card volume specifically by Level 2 versus Level 3 processing tier. Nilson’s public commercial-card figures are aggregate; GSA’s SmartPay statistics describe total program spend, not which transactions carried the additional line-item data that triggers a Level 2 or Level 3 rate. That gap is worth stating plainly rather than filling with an invented percentage.
What is documented is the reason the split matters at all. Visa’s own published interchange rate schedule, not independently re-verified in this pass but carried forward from the vertical’s existing rate research, lists a qualified rate of 1.75% plus $0.10 for its enhanced “Commercial Product 3” data tier, below the 2.50% plus $0.10 rate for a standard commercial card-present transaction and well below the up-to-2.95% plus $0.10 non-qualified rate. That rate gap between tiers is the real, sourced reason a merchant capturing Level 2 or Level 3 data pays less than one that does not, independent of any adoption percentage this research could confirm.
The Numbers
US commercial card purchase volume, combining Visa, Mastercard, American Express, and Discover, reached $2.230 trillion in 2024, up 4.5% over 2023.
Nilson Report, US Commercial Cards, Amex, Mastercard and Visa
The GSA SmartPay program recorded $39.4 billion in total program spend for fiscal year 2025, averaging $480 per transaction.
Participating agencies and organizations earned $471 million in refunds through the SmartPay program in fiscal year 2025.
Visa’s own published interchange schedule lists a 1.75% plus $0.10 qualified rate for its enhanced Commercial Product 3 data tier, versus 2.50% plus $0.10 for a standard commercial card-present transaction and up to 2.95% plus $0.10 for a non-qualified transaction.
Sources
The external data in this article draws on the sources below. Figures described in the text as estimates or industry triangulations are directional and are not attributed to a single dataset.
- Nilson Report, US Commercial Cards, Amex, Mastercard and Visa
- GSA, SmartPay Statistics
- Visa, Visa USA Interchange Reimbursement Fees