If an authenticated payment is declined with the decline code authentication_required, the customer should contact their card issuer for more information, or retry with a different form of payment.

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What this decline code means

Since 2019, card issuers can provide an authentication_required decline code when declining an attempted payment. Typically, this means that a customer should retry the payment using 3D Secure authentication. The bank may request authentication to comply with regulation, such as Strong Customer Authentication in Europe, or to validate that the customer is legitimate.

However, card issuers occasionally provide an authentication_required decline code on a payment that has already gone through 3D Secure. This usually occurs on Mastercard branded cards where the card issuer has not yet updated their systems, and occurs because the indicators for the authentication_required code previously signaled a different decline code (withdrawal_count_limit_exceeded).