Discover Card $1.225 Billion Merchant Settlement: Deadline May 18, 2026

The Discover Card merchant settlement is one of the largest payment processing class action settlements in U.S. history — with a fund of up to $1.225 billion. If your business accepted Discover cards between 2007 and 2023, you may be owed money. The deadline to file is May 18, 2026, and no proof of purchase is required.

What Is the Discover Card Merchant Settlement?

Discover Financial Services agreed to pay between $540 million and $1.225 billion to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the company misclassified merchant interchange fees over a 16-year period. The lawsuit claims that Discover charged merchants incorrect — and often higher — interchange rates by misclassifying certain transactions into fee tiers that didn't accurately reflect the merchant's actual business category.

Interchange fees are the fees a merchant pays every time a customer swipes a credit or debit card. Even small differences in rate classifications, applied across billions of transactions, can result in millions of dollars in overcharges. For many small and mid-sized businesses, these overcharges went completely unnoticed — until now.

The settlement covers merchants in all 50 states and doesn't require you to have saved any receipts or transaction records. Self-attestation of your merchant status during the qualifying period is sufficient to file a claim.

Who Is Eligible to File a Claim?

You may be eligible if your business meets all of the following criteria:

• You are or were a merchant in the United States
• You accepted Discover credit or debit card payments at any point between January 1, 2007, and December 31, 2023
• You paid interchange fees on those transactions

This covers an enormous range of businesses — retail stores, restaurants, service providers, e-commerce businesses, medical practices, auto dealers, contractors, and any other business that processed Discover cards. If you had a merchant account that accepted Discover during those 16 years, there's a strong chance you qualify.

Who Is NOT Eligible?

The settlement excludes:

• Discover itself and its subsidiaries
• Class counsel and their immediate family members
• Merchants who have already individually settled with Discover for these claims
• Federal, state, and local government entities

How Much Can You Receive?

Payouts from the Discover merchant settlement are calculated on a pro-rata basis — meaning your share of the fund depends on how much in Discover interchange fees you paid relative to all other valid claimants. The more Discover transaction volume your business processed between 2007 and 2023, the larger your potential payout.

For small businesses that processed relatively low Discover volume, expect payments in the $50–$500 range. Mid-sized businesses with substantial Discover transaction history could see payouts of several thousand dollars. Larger merchants or businesses that can document specific overpayments may receive significantly more.

The settlement fund floor is $540 million — guaranteed regardless of claim volume. If fewer merchants file than expected, the fund could grow to the cap of $1.225 billion. That's an important dynamic: early filing is advantageous, but even a large number of claimants still results in meaningful payments given the size of the fund.

How to File Your Claim

Filing is straightforward. You don't need a lawyer and the process takes about 10 minutes. Here's what to do:

1. Visit the official settlement website — SettlementRadar links directly to the claims administrator's portal from the Discover merchant settlement page.
2. Provide your business information — name, address, EIN or taxpayer ID, and the years you accepted Discover payments.
3. Attest to your eligibility — No receipts required. You confirm under penalty of perjury that you accepted Discover cards during the qualifying period.
4. Select your payment method — choose check or electronic payment.
5. Submit before May 18, 2026.

Don't wait until the last minute. Settlement claim portals frequently experience high traffic in the final days before a deadline, and technical issues can prevent last-minute submissions. File now while you're thinking about it.

Why Is This Settlement So Large?

Payment card interchange fee litigation is one of the most active areas of antitrust class action law. The Visa and Mastercard merchant settlement — the largest antitrust class action in U.S. history — distributed over $5.5 billion to merchants. Discover's settlement follows a similar legal theory: that merchants were overcharged through opaque and improperly applied fee structures.

Interchange fees are notoriously complex. They vary by card type (credit vs. debit), merchant category code (MCC), transaction size, and dozens of other factors. Most merchants don't have the resources to audit their own interchange statements against the published rate schedules — which is exactly how overcharging of this scale can persist for over a decade without detection.

The class action mechanism allows affected merchants to pool their claims and fund the legal resources required to take on a major financial institution. That's the system working as intended — and the $1.225 billion settlement cap reflects just how significant the alleged overcharging was.

What Happens After You File?

After the May 18, 2026 deadline, the settlement administrator will process all claims and calculate individual payouts based on the pro-rata formula. Payments are expected to begin distributing within 3 to 6 months of the deadline, assuming no appeals delay the final court approval process.

You'll receive confirmation of your claim via email immediately after submitting. Keep that confirmation — it includes your claim reference number, which you'll need if you ever need to follow up with the administrator.

Related Settlements to File While You're At It

If you're a business owner filing the Discover merchant settlement, check whether you also qualify for these active settlements:

• Roundup Weedkiller Settlement ($10.9B) — if your business or employees used Roundup and developed cancer
• Capital One Data Breach Settlement ($190M) — if your business was affected by the 2019 breach
• Capital One 360 Savings Settlement ($425M) — if you had a personal 360 Savings account

Key Takeaways

• The Discover Card merchant settlement is worth up to $1.225 billion
• Any U.S. merchant who accepted Discover cards between 2007 and 2023 may qualify
• No proof required — self-attestation is sufficient
• The deadline is May 18, 2026 — don't miss it
• Payout amounts vary by transaction volume but even small businesses can receive meaningful payments
• Filing takes about 10 minutes at the official settlement website

This is real money from a court-approved settlement. If your business accepted Discover cards in the past 16 years, you almost certainly qualify. There's no downside to filing — and the upside is potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars back in your pocket.