Credit card expiration dates - Inclusive or exclusive?

Question

Say you've got a credit card number with an expiration date of 05/08 - i.e. May 2008.

Does that mean the card expires on the morning of the 1st of May 2008, or the night of the 31st of May 2008?

Answer 1

In my experience, it has expired at the end of that month. That is based on the fact that I can use it during that month, and that month is when my bank sends a new one.

Answer 2

Have a look on one of your own credit cards. It'll have some text like EXPIRES END or VALID THRU above the date. So the card expires at the end of the given month.

Answer 3

I process a lot of credit card transaction at work, and I can tell you that the expiry date is inclusive.

Also, I agree with Gorgapor. Don't write your own processing code. They are some good tools out there for credit card processing. Here we have been using Monetra for 3 years and it does a pretty decent job at it.

Answer 4

If you are writing a site which takes credit card numbers for payment:

1. You should probably be as permissive as possible, so that if it does expire, you allow the credit card company to catch it. So, allow it until the last second of the last day of the month.
2. Don't write your own credit card processing code. If^H^HWhen you write a bug, someone will lose real money. We all make mistakes, just don't make decisions that turn your mistakes into catastrophes.

Answer 5

It took me a couple minutes to find a site that I could source for this,

The card is valid until the last day of the month indicated, after the last day of the next month; the card cannot be used to make a purchase if the merchant attempts to obtain an authorization. - Source

Also, while looking this up, I found an interesting article on Micrsoft's website, apparently Access 2000 assumed that the card would expire on the first day of the month and an article was released on how to calculate the last day of the month. Additionally, this page has everything you ever wanted to know about credit cards.

Answer 6

In your example a credit card is expired on 6/2008.

Without knowing what you are doing I cannot say definitively you should not be validating ahead of time but be aware that sometimes business rules defy all logic.

For example, where I used to work they often did not process a card at all or would continue on transaction failure simply so they could contact the customer and get a different card.

Answer 7

@Rob

That wording seems vague to me. If I insert dates, a card expiring 09/08 is valid until the last day of September, and after the last day of October, the card cannot be used to make a purchase if the merchant attempts to obtain an authorization.

What happens in between?

Answer 8

According to Visa's "Card Acceptance and Chargeback Management Guidelines for Visa Merchants"; "Good Thru" (or "Valid Thru") Date is the expiration date of the card. It is located below the embossed account number. If the current transaction date is after the "Good Thru" date, the card has expired.

Answer 9

lots of big companies dont even use your expiration date anymore because it causes auto-renewal of payments to be lost when cards are issued with new expiration dates and the same account number. This has been a huge problem in the service industry, so these companies have cornered the card issuers into processing payments w/o expiration dates to avoid this pitfall. Not many people know about this yet, so not all companies use this practice.

Answer 10

I had a Automated Billing setup online and the credit card said it say good Thru 10/09, but the card was rejected the first week in October and again the next week. Each time it was rejected it cost me a $10 fee. Don't assume it good thru the end of the month if you have automatic billing setup.