Address verification service

For verification of postal addresses see, see Postal Address Verification.

An address verification service (AVS) is a service provided by major credit card processors to enable merchants to authenticate ownership of a credit card used by a customer. The system checks the billing address provided by the customer against the billing address on file at the credit card company or issuing bank. AVS can be used in addition to other security features of a credit card, such as the CVV2 number. AVS is not available by all credit card providers, and not in all countries. It is generally not available for foreign credit cards; that is, cards issued in a country other than where it is being used. Some countries, such as Denmark, do not permit banks to verify customer data.

In countries where AVS is available - namely the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom - a merchant in a non-face-to-face transaction can verify a customer’s bona fide by confirming their billing address against data in the credit card provider’s records. This is done as part of the merchant's request for authorization of the credit card transaction. AVS verifies that the billing address of the credit or debit card matches the address that was given by the customer. However, AVS only verifies the numeric portion of the address, resulting in certain anomalies like apartment numbers, which can cause false declines. However, this is reported to be a rare occurrence.

Though the checks can vary between card companies, AVS typically verifies only the numeric portions of a cardholder's billing address. For example, if the address is 101 Main Street, Highland, CA 92346, in the United States, AVS will check 101 and 92346. Cardholders may receive false negatives, or partial declines for AVS from e-commerce verification systems, which may require manual overrides, voice authorization, or reprogramming of the AVS entries by the card issuing bank. Credit card AVS does not determine deliverability of an address.

AVS support

AVS is a service to combat fraudulent activity for non-face-to-face transactions by cross-referencing the address provided by a cardholder to a merchant with the card issuer's records. AVS is offered by Visa, MasterCard and American Express in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. It is also offered by Discover.

Cardholders with a bank that does not support AVS may receive an error from online stores due to the lack of verification.

Besides the automated verification, some banks provide merchants with a manual verification system. Usually this is done for foreign credit card accounts as the AVS only works in the same country. This facility helps the merchants to prevent fraud arising from other countries. The merchant's bank calls the customer's bank (or sends a fax for banks that request them).

AVS response codes

Following a request from a merchant for an address verification, the credit card processor sends an AVS response code back to the merchant indicating the degree of address matching. Merchants can use the AVS code to determine whether to accept or reject the credit card transaction.

Code	Visa	Mastercard	Discover	American Express
A	Street address matches, ZIP does not	Street address matches, ZIP does not	Address only Matches	Address and ZIP match
B	Street address matches, but ZIP not verified.	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
C	Street address and ZIP not verified	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
D	Street address and ZIP match (International Only)	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
E	AVS data is invalid or AVS is not allowed for this card type.	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
F	Street address and postal code match (UK Only)	Not applicable	Not applicable	Street address matches, card member name does not match
G	Non-U.S. issuing bank does not support AVS.	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
I	Address information not verified for international transaction	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
K	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Card member name matches
L	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Card member name and ZIP match
M	Street address and postal code match (International Only)	Not applicable	Not applicable	Card member name, street address, and ZIP code match
N	Street address and ZIP code do not match	Street address and ZIP code do not match	Street address and ZIP code do not match	Street address and ZIP code do not match
O	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable	Card member name and street address match
P	Zip code matches, street address unverifiable due to incompatible formats (International Only)	Not applicable	Not applicable	Not applicable
R	System unavailable, retry	System unavailable, retry	System unavailable, retry	System unavailable, retry
S	AVS not supported	AVS not supported	AVS not supported	AVS not supported
T	Not applicable	Not applicable	9-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	Not applicable
U	Address information unavailable. Returned if the U.S. bank does not support non-U.S. AVS or if the AVS in a U.S. bank is not functioning properly.	Address information unavailable	Address information unavailable	Address information unavailable
W	9-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	9-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	9-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	Card member name, ZIP, and street address do NOT match
X	9-Digit ZIP and street address match	9-Digit ZIP and street address match	9-Digit ZIP and street address match	Not applicable
Y	5-Digit ZIP and street address match	5-Digit ZIP and street address match	5-Digit ZIP and street address match	5-Digit ZIP and street address match
Z	5-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	5-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	5-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not	5-Digit ZIP matches, street address does not

Declines due to Address Verification System

"Declined due to AVS mismatch", the authorization code, along with the hold on the authorized funds, will remain on the customer's card until the issuing bank have it expire (typically 7 day for all business types except hotels and car rentals that can have up to 30 days). As a result, the held funds may be subtracted from the customer's available balance, and an online statement may reflect the authorization request which might be mistaken for an actual charge. Most card issuing banks will remove authorizations within 1–2 days if they are not claimed for settlement.