Regulated products
Vape, e-cigarettes and tobacco merchant accounts
Commonly assigned MCC
5993 · 5999
The category actually assigned is set by the acquirer at boarding and can differ from these.
The short version
Nicotine is one of the few verticals where the compliance burden is federal, state and carrier-level at once. The PACT Act brought e-cigarettes into a registration and reporting regime built for cigarettes, and the major parcel carriers stopped accepting consumer nicotine shipments entirely.
Acquirers price that as restricted because the failure modes are regulatory rather than financial. A merchant with a spotless chargeback ratio is still a problem if age verification is cosmetic.
What is actually being priced
What underwriting is looking at.
Age verification has to be real
A tick-box confirming the buyer is 21 is not age verification. Underwriting looks for a third-party check against a data source at checkout.
PACT Act registration is checked
Federal and state registration, plus the monthly reporting obligation, forms part of the file. Not being registered is a decline, not a condition.
Shipping is restricted at the carrier
The major carriers do not move consumer nicotine. Acquirers want to see which compliant carrier you actually use.
What we put in place
- Placement with acquirers writing nicotine under a current policy
- Age-verification vendor integration at checkout
- Gateway rules that block shipping to restricted states
- Chargeback representment tuned to age-restricted disputes
What underwriting will ask you for
Assemble these before you apply anywhere. The list does not get shorter by waiting, and having it ready is the single biggest thing you control about how long this takes.
- PACT Act registration evidence, federal and per state
- Your age-verification vendor and where it fires in checkout
- Your shipping carrier and restricted-state logic
- Product catalogue including nicotine strengths
On this account
What a boarded account in this vertical usually carries.
Also in regulated products
Tell us about your vape & tobacco business.
We will tell you whether a route exists right now, which acquirers are writing the category, and what your file needs before it goes anywhere.