$167.5 Million in ATM Surcharges: The Visa and Mastercard Claim

Visa and Mastercard have agreed to pay a combined $167,500,000 to settle claims about the access fees independent ATMs charged for cash withdrawals. The class period runs from October 24, 2007 to August 14, 2026. Claims are due February 10, 2027.

Those three facts appear in every write-up. Two that matter more do not. The first is that a great many people who assume they are in this class are not, because of one sentence in the notice about which kind of transaction counts. The second is that the money is not divided among claimants at all. It is divided across transactions.

The case is Burke v. Visa Inc., No. 1:11-cv-01882, before Judge Richard J. Leon in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. What follows comes from the court-authorized notice rather than coverage of it, and where the notice declines to promise something, so do I.

The allegation concerns network rules dating to 1996. A withdrawal can be routed over more than one debit network, and those networks do not cost the machine operator the same amount. The claim is that Visa and Mastercard rules barred independent ATM operators from offering a lower surcharge when a withdrawal was routed over a cheaper alternative network. The operator could not pass the saving on, and access fees were therefore higher than competition would have produced.

Both companies deny wrongdoing and agreed to pay without admitting liability, which is standard in a settlement of this size. Visa's share is $88,775,000 and Mastercard's is $78,725,000. Those add to the $167,500,000 headline.

Notice what the theory is not. It is not that you were charged a fee you never agreed to, because the screen told you the fee and you pressed yes. It is that the fee you agreed to was higher than it would have been if operators had been free to compete on it. The injury alleged is a price, not a surprise, and it is spread thin across an enormous number of individually tiny transactions, which is exactly why the payout arithmetic behaves the way it does.

Now the part most coverage gets wrong.

A domestic cash withdrawal means taking cash out of a deposit account using an ATM card or a pin-debit card. The notice then says what it does not include, and this is the sentence to read twice: it does not include any credit card transaction, nor any transaction involving a cash advance or a prepaid card. If the cash came off a credit card or a prepaid card, that withdrawal is not in this settlement regardless of what the machine charged you.

And not fully reimbursed does more work than it looks. If your bank refunded the surcharge, which some checking accounts do as standard, that transaction does not count for you.

There are also separate statewide classes for California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan. Excluded outright are Visa and Mastercard themselves and their officers, directors, employees and affiliates, government entities, the presiding judicial officer and their staff and immediate family, jurors, and anyone who opts out.

One more thing about the period. October 24, 2007 to August 14, 2026 is eighteen years and nearly ten months. You will see it quoted as nineteen years, which is close enough for a headline, but the boundary dates govern eligibility. August 14, 2026 is simply the Friday the court granted preliminary approval.

Nineteen years is a long time to keep a receipt, and nobody kept the receipt. Most people can reach their own bank's online statement archive, and how far back it reaches varies by institution. Mine goes back seven years; anything older I would have to request, and that is one file rather than a general rule. Seven years covers a little over a third of this class period.

That gap matters more here than in a flat-payment settlement, because this claim is quantitative. You are not simply asserting that you belong; you are reporting how many qualifying surcharged transactions you had, and your share moves with that count. A statement line is the natural evidence: date, amount, the merchant descriptor naming the retailer or the operator, and often the surcharge as its own line.

What the claim form requires is set by the court-approved form, and that document is the authority, not this article. Read it before concluding that a lack of paperwork rules you out, and before guessing at how many transactions you can properly report.

December 11, 2026 is the objection and exclusion deadline. Exclusion, which is opting out, means you leave the class: you get nothing from the fund and you keep whatever right you have to bring your own claim. Objection means you stay in the class and tell the court you consider the deal inadequate. Opting out over a handful of ATM surcharges in order to litigate against Visa and Mastercard yourself is, for almost everyone, not a sensible trade.

February 10, 2027 is the claim deadline: submitted online or postmarked by that date.

Exclusion closing two months before claims is structural: the court has to know who is in the class before judging whether the settlement is fair to them. The consequence is that the earlier deadline is the one you can miss without noticing, because almost nobody writes about it.

Then a third date, not your deadline but one that governs the money. The upcoming fairness hearing is February 17, 2027, when the court decides whether to approve the settlement and what to award in fees. The notice adds that it may be held electronically or moved to another date or time without additional notice. If it is approved and nobody appeals, the administrator anticipates payment within about six months. Appeals extend that. Payment is sent digitally by email, with options such as PayPal or a virtual debit card, and a mailed check on request.

Start with the fund: $167,500,000. Several things come out before anything reaches a claimant. Counsel will request fees of up to thirty percent of the fund plus costs, and thirty percent of $167.5 million is $50,250,000. Notice and administration costs are capped at up to $3,000,000. Service awards of up to $17,500 per class representative come out, as do taxes and litigation expenses, which the notice does not quantify.

Take the two deductions that are quantified: $167,500,000 less $50,250,000 less $3,000,000 leaves $114,250,000. Treat that as a ceiling on the Net Settlement Fund rather than a forecast, because costs, taxes and service awards push it down from there.

Here is the part that matters. That money is not divided by the number of claimants. Each valid claim receives a pro rata share of the net fund based on the number of qualifying surcharged transactions submitted.

Suppose, purely to show the mechanism, that the net fund is $114,250,000 and 60,000,000 qualifying transactions are approved in total. Each approved transaction is then worth $114,250,000 divided by 60,000,000, about $1.90. Four approved transactions is about $7.62; forty is about $76.17.

Now move the denominator. If 200,000,000 transactions are approved instead, each is worth about $0.57, and the same four and forty become about $2.29 and $22.85.

Both transaction totals are invented to demonstrate the formula; neither is a prediction. The notice says plainly that nobody can know in advance how much the payment will be. That is the honest answer rather than a hedge.

This is a consumer-protection settlement, not a credit-report event, and that is the most common misreading of a case like this.

I am not going to guess at how the payment is treated for tax purposes; that depends on facts about you I do not have.

First, test yourself against all four conditions rather than the headline: cash taken from a deposit account, using an ATM card or pin-debit card, at an independent non-bank ATM in the United States, between October 24, 2007 and August 14, 2026, on which you paid an access fee your bank did not fully refund. A credit card cash advance at the same machine on the same afternoon does not count.

Third, pull whatever statements you can reach before you sit down with the form. The number of qualifying transactions you can properly report is the one input you control.

Then put December 11, 2026 and February 10, 2027 in a calendar. One detail worth knowing: money left after claims are processed goes to a non-profit recipient approved by the court, not back to Visa or Mastercard.

$167,500,000, split $88,775,000 from Visa and $78,725,000 from Mastercard. A class period of eighteen years and nearly ten months, rounded up to nineteen. A net fund of at most about $114,250,000 after fees and administration. And a payment that is not that figure divided by claimants but a proportional share of it, set by transaction counts nobody has finished adding up.

I have been deliberate about not giving you a number, because the notice itself says nobody can know one in advance. What I can tell you is which questions determine your answer: whether the cash came from a deposit account rather than a credit or prepaid card, whether your bank refunded the fee, and how many qualifying transactions you can report.

What I would take from this is smaller and more durable than the payment. A rule written in 1996, invisible at the point of sale, sat between an ATM operator and the number on the screen for the better part of two decades. Nobody standing at that machine could have seen it. A settlement is a blunt instrument, but it is the only thing that brought the rule into daylight.

File if you qualify, file through the official site, pay nobody to do it for you, and do not budget the proceeds.

1. Who is covered by the Visa and Mastercard ATM fee settlement?

A person charged an access fee for a domestic cash withdrawal at an Independent ATM in the United States between October 24, 2007 and August 14, 2026, who was not fully reimbursed for that fee by their bank. A domestic cash withdrawal means taking cash from a deposit account using an ATM card or pin-debit card, and an Independent ATM is one not owned by Visa, Mastercard, or any bank or other financial institution. Separate statewide classes exist for California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan.

2. Do credit card cash advances or prepaid card withdrawals count?

No. The notice states that a qualifying transaction does not include any credit card transaction, nor any transaction involving a cash advance or a prepaid card. If the cash came off a credit card or a prepaid card, that withdrawal is outside the settlement no matter what the machine charged. This is the eligibility point most coverage of the case leaves out.

3. How much will each person receive from the $167.5 million ATM settlement?

Nobody can know in advance, and the notice says so. Payment is not an equal split among claimants. Each valid claim receives a pro rata share of the Net Settlement Fund based on the number of qualifying surcharged transactions submitted, so the amount depends both on how many transactions you report and on how many are approved across everyone who files.

4. How is the ATM settlement fund actually divided?

The net fund is multiplied by your approved qualifying transactions and divided by the total approved qualifying transactions across all claimants. From the $167,500,000 fund come fees of up to 30 percent, about $50,250,000, up to $3,000,000 in notice and administration costs, service awards of up to $17,500 per class representative, and taxes and litigation expenses. Subtracting only the two quantified items leaves at most $114,250,000.

5. What is the deadline to file an ATM fee settlement claim?

February 10, 2027, submitted online or postmarked by that date. A separate and earlier deadline of December 11, 2026 applies to objecting or excluding yourself from the class. The upcoming fairness hearing is February 17, 2027, and the notice says it may be held electronically or moved to another date or time without additional notice. If the settlement is approved without appeals, the administrator anticipates payment within about six months.

6. Do I need receipts or old bank statements to file a claim?

The court-approved claim form sets what is required and is the authority. Because payment is pro rata by transaction count, statements matter more than in a flat-payment settlement: the number of qualifying transactions you can properly report is the one input you control. Most online bank archives do not reach back to 2007, so read the form before assuming a lack of paperwork rules you out.

7. Does filing an ATM settlement claim affect my credit report?

No. This is a consumer-protection settlement, not a credit-report event. Submitting a claim generates no credit inquiry, the payment is not a tradeline, and nothing about being in the class appears on a credit file.

8. Should I pay a service to file my ATM fee claim?

9. What is the difference between objecting and opting out?

Opting out, or exclusion, removes you from the class: you receive nothing from the fund and keep whatever right you have to sue individually. Objecting keeps you in the class while telling the court you consider the settlement inadequate. Both must be done by December 11, 2026.