ISO 18245
Identifiers
The international standard that defines the catalogue of Merchant Category Codes (MCCs). Maintained by the ISO/TC68 committee, it covers ~290 four-digit codes describing every category of merchant business. All card schemes use MCCs derived from ISO 18245.
In practice.
ISO 18245 is the standard that defines the MCC list itself, which is why every acquirer and card network works from the same four-digit catalogue. Merchants meet it indirectly: the code assigned at underwriting comes from this standard, and our MCC lookup covers the full catalogue.
Related terms: MCC · Card scheme