How do I solve a failed card payment?

bunq

Hey bunqers 🌈

There are a few things you should pay attention to if you're trying to pay with your bunq card and the payment isn't accepted. Below you’ll find a list of what you should check if your card payment fails.

Click on the type of payment that failed to see what could have gone wrong and how to resolve it 🚀

Card payment requiring a PIN code

See how to resolve failed PIN payments here

Contactless payment

See how to resolve failed Contactless payment here

Online payment

See how to resolve failed Online payments here

If the payment failed and there's no event in your bunq app

If you tried to pay with your bunq card, the payment wasn't accepted and nothing appeared under “Events” in your bunq app, this may be due to one of the following reasons:

You're using a card that isn't accepted by the terminal. You should therefore try to use your Mastercard Credit if you tried to pay with the Maestro or Mastercard Debit (and vice-versa).
You're paying at an offline terminal with a Maestro or Mastercard Debit card. In this case, you should use your Mastercard Credit to solve it.
Your card is being blocked by the acquirer. In this situation, you can contact the merchant to help them ensure that your card is accepted correctly.
Your card is faulty and your payments get declined everywhere. The only thing to do in this situation is to replace your card in the bunq app. You can always use Apple Pay or Google Pay, until your new card gets delivered for your purchases.
When you pay on a POS terminal, errors with different messages can appear on it if the payment fails. Some of them will state the exact reason why this card payment has failed and others will show a different type of error. This might be caused by the card not being accepted by the terminal so we suggest trying another card of yours or try paying with your Google or Apple Pay.

📌 Important: We don't support direct transactions to bunq cards yet. This means that all transactions sent to the card won't be accepted. We recommend you to contact the sender and ask them to transfer the amount to your IBAN instead. You'll be able to receive the money that way, without any issue!