Summary

Prohibits payment processors and other covered payment actors from using merchant codes that separately identify firearms merchants or ammunition merchants. It adds a new provision to the Truth in Lending Act that bars covered entities from assigning or using a merchant category code (MCC) that explicitly flags a merchant as a firearms or ammunition seller and defines which businesses and payment actors are treated as covered entities. Covered entities include businesses that sell firearms or ammunition and the payment-industry actors that process or route their transactions (for example, acquirers, payment processors, card networks, and payment facilitators). The text does not specify an effective date, new funding, or new criminal penalties; it makes a targeted change to how transactions for firearm- and ammunition-related merchants may be coded in payments data.

Key Points

• Prohibits covered payment actors from using merchant category codes that separately identify firearms merchants or ammunition merchants.
• Adds a new subsection to the Truth in Lending Act that defines the restriction and the covered entities subject to it.
• Covered entities include firearm/ammunition merchants and payment-industry actors (acquirers, processors, card networks, payment facilitators) listed in the statute.
• Requires payment industry participants to stop assigning or using discrete MCCs that label merchants as firearms or ammunition sellers.
• Does not, in the supplied text, create new funding, tax changes, or specify new criminal penalties or an explicit effective date.
• Will drive operational changes for payment processors and acquirers (MCC mapping, merchant onboarding, reporting systems).
• May reduce the ability of some third parties to identify firearm/ammunition merchants using MCCs, affecting research, compliance monitoring, and law-enforcement analytics.
• Is a single-topic, targeted amendment — not an omnibus or appropriations measure.