Get Help With Payment Processing Error: Card Not Authorized

• What does Card Not Authorized mean?
• I got the error message Card Not Authorized. How do I fix it?
• How do I troubleshoot the Card Not Authorized error?
• I tried more than one card, and they were all declined. What now?
• My card works at the restaurant but is declined online. Why?

The Card Not Authorized error could be due to a card being flagged by the bank for unusual activity. To troubleshoot: 

1. Verify the card is active and unrestricted. 
2. Try a different card. 
3. Encourage the guest to contact their bank for next steps.

If a second or third card fails the same way

Adding another card inside the same checkout often fails for a reason that has nothing to do with the new card. Once a payment attempt has failed, the payment method can stay attached to that attempt, so every card entered afterwards returns the same error. Try these steps in order:

1. Close the checkout completely and start a new order or a fresh checkout session before entering another card. Do not swap cards inside a checkout that has already failed.
2. If you are ordering from a phone, try again in a desktop browser. Some failures are specific to mobile web.
3. Re-enter the card details manually and check every field, including the billing postal code, exactly as it appears on your card statement.
4. If the charge is unusually large, ask the restaurant to split it into smaller payments. Large-transaction and daily-sales limits are a known cause, and splitting the payment is the step most likely to work.
5. Check the Toast status page for an active disruption before troubleshooting the card any further.

If every card is declined, the problem is not with your cards. See The Card Works in Person but Not Online below.

The card works in person but not online

If your card works when you tap or insert it at the restaurant but is declined for a phone, online, catering, or manually keyed order - and your card issuer has confirmed there is nothing wrong with the card - the decline is almost certainly a setting on the restaurant's Toast account, not a problem with your card. The most common cause is that the restaurant's account is not set up to accept card-not-present transactions, meaning payments where the card is not physically presented. When that is the cause, chip and tap payments succeed and every keyed, phone, or remote payment fails, no matter whose card it is.

A cardholder cannot fix this, and no additional card will work. Contact the restaurant and tell them: the card works in person, the card issuer has confirmed there is no block on the card, and every card is being declined for remote payment. That is the fastest route to a real fix.

For restaurants: if keyed, phone, online, or catering payments are declining while chip and tap payments succeed, do not troubleshoot the guest's card. Contact Toast Customer Care to confirm that card-not-present transactions are enabled on your account and to check any transaction or daily sales limits.