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The tally of merchants receiving funds from a $5.5 billion settlement with the networks is nearing 700,000, according to a claims update.
Published Oct. 12, 2026
Merchants have received about $631.7 million to date as part of a multi-billion dollar class-action lawsuit settlement with the card networks Visa and Mastercard, according to a court filing Friday.
The damages disbursements have gone to 689,340 merchants so far, including $212.8 million from a second partial distribution that began last month, class administrator Epiq said in the filing with the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, New York.
District Judge Brian Cogan approved the second distribution in June as part of his oversight of a $5.5 billion settlement with the two largest U.S. card networks. About 84,000 merchant claimants who sued as part of the class action are covered in the second round of merchant payouts.
The settlement partially resolved an antitrust case in which merchants alleged the two network giants charged them excessive interchange fees when customers paid with a credit or debit card. The merchants’ class includes any U.S. business that accepted Visa or Mastercard-branded cards between Jan. 1, 2004, and Jan. 25, 2019.
The settlement fund held $5.02 billion as of Sept. 30, following the distributions to merchants, according to the report by Epiq, the class administrator in the litigation. The next quarterly report to the court on claims will be filed in January.
The settlement for the damages portion of the case was reached in 2018 and received final approval by a federal judge the following year, followed by appeals.
About 1.47 million merchants filed claims in the case as of a February 2025 deadline. About 2.12 million merchant tax identification numbers were registered as part of the overall group of business owners due a potential payout from the settlement, according to the report.
Separately, U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Marutollo, who is assigned to help the court in the case, last week approved Epiq’s request for $21.4 million for its administration work from April through August.
Cogan has scheduled a hearing next month on a second part of the case, a proposed settlement that covers injunctive relief in the swipe-fee litigation.
It is supported by the card networks and attorneys for the class of plaintiffs, with the litigation dating to October 2005. Multiple large merchants, including Walmart, Circle K and DoorDash, oppose the settlement and have urged Cogan to reject it.