You may think high-risk merchants are mostly businesses that sell shady products, but that's not true. High-risk merchants include: Industries with a high risk of chargebacks and fraud (over 2%) Industries with high rate of failure Industries that require a lot of legal regulation Subscription businesses with recurring billing If you have bad personal credit If you previously had a failed business If you have large ticket transactions (over $500) Very high volume businesses (over $100K per month) If you accept foreign currencies