Decline code · Soft decline
Decline code 91: Issuer or Switch Inoperative
The issuing bank, or a network switch on the path to it, is down or unreachable, so the authorization could not be decided. Nobody evaluated the customer or the card; the request simply could not be delivered and answered. When the outage ends, the same transaction can be approved normally.
Should you retry?
Retry freely once the outage passes; the decline carried no judgment. This code sits in Visa's temporary-condition category with the standard 15-in-30 ceiling, so space attempts rather than machine-gunning during the outage, and prefer one retry per hour until service resumes.
Why code 91 happens
- The issuer's authorization host is offline for an outage or maintenance.
- A network switch between acquirer and issuer failed or timed out.
- Regional connectivity problems cut off issuers in a particular country, which happens during infrastructure incidents.
- The issuer was reachable but responded too slowly, and the network timed the request out on its behalf.
- Stand-in processing declined to cover the transaction, as it does above certain amounts and risk thresholds.
What to do about it
- Retry after a delay of several minutes to an hour, since most issuer outages are short.
- Queue and reschedule recurring billing attempts that hit 91 rather than counting them as customer-caused failures in dunning logic.
- Watch whether 91s cluster on one issuer BIN, which confirms an issuer outage, or across many issuers on one route, which implicates your acquirer's connectivity instead.
- During a sustained issuer outage, message affected customers to try a different card rather than losing the sales entirely.
Frequently asked questions
- What does issuer or switch inoperative mean?
- A system needed to answer the authorization, either the customer's bank or a network switch en route, was down or unresponsive. The transaction was never actually evaluated, and retrying after the outage usually succeeds.
- How long do code 91 outages usually last?
- Minutes to hours in most cases. Issuer host outages and switch failures are typically resolved quickly. Retry after a short wait, and if the code persists across many different issuers, ask your processor whether the problem is on the acquiring side.
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