Prohibited categories

This reference lists all prohibited categories that Industry Classification can return. Use these categories to:

Identify prohibited or high-risk industries
Screen businesses for compliance

Each classification request returns a set of category labels and associated prediction confidence for each industry in which the business may operate.

Supported prohibited categories for an industry classification request

This table shows all prohibited industry categories that the industries that Middesk can identify. You’ll receive these classifications whether or not you include a website URL in your request.

Name	Category	Example	High-Risk flag returned?
Adult Content	ADULT_CONTENT	Pornography Dating Sites Pay-per-View Chat	TRUE
Financial Aggregation	AGGREGATION	Factoring Payment Processors Crowdfunding	TRUE
Cannabis	CANNABIS	Manufacturers Distributors Dispensaries	TRUE
Counterfeit Goods / Branded Goods	BRANDED_GOODS	Businesses selling (Fake) Brand Name Goods Unauthorized Resellers	TRUE
Drug of Concern	DRUG_OF_CONCERN	Legal substance that provides the same effect as an illegal drug (like salvia, kratom)	TRUE
Drug Paraphernalia	DRUG_PARAPHERNALIA	Drug Manufacturing Items for Drug Use	TRUE
Gambling	GAMBLING	Casinos Online Gambling Fantasy Sports	TRUE
Get Rich Quick	GET_RICH_QUICK	Companies Promoting High Yield Investment Opportunities or Services	TRUE
Gift Cards	GIFT_CARD	Gift Cards	TRUE
High-Risk	HIGH_RISK	These categories traditionally present higher risks of fraud, excessive chargebacks, or money laundering. Examples: Diet Centers Health Clubs Country Clubs The use of credit to pay for lending service Credit card and identity theft protection Government grants Subscriptions over one year Hair Extensions Telemarketing Embassy Extended warranties Phone services Prepaid phone cards Circumvention, jamming and interference devices Timeshares	TRUE
Investment and Credit	INVESTMENT_CREDIT	Securities Brokers Lending Instruments Credit Repair	TRUE
Money and Legal	MONEY_LEGAL	Bail Bonds Collections Agencies Adoption Services	TRUE
Multi-level Marketing	MULTI_LEVEL_MARKETING	Multi-level Marketing Pyramid Schemes	TRUE
Pseudo Pharmaceuticals	PSEUDO_PHARMACEUTICAL	Nutraceuticals Products making health claims not approved by the FDA	TRUE
Regulated Products	REGULATED_ILLEGAL	Weapons / Firearms Tobacco and E-Cig Prescription Drugs	TRUE
Social Media Activity	SOCIAL_MEDIA_ACTIVITY	Sale of Twitter Followers Sale of Online Traffic Sale of YouTube Views	TRUE
Virtual Currency	VIRTUAL_CURRENCY	Initial Coin Offerings Digital Wallets Video Game Credits	TRUE
Other Non-Prohibited	OTHER_NON_PROHIBITED	This label returns with high confidence when Middesk assesses the risk of the business operating in a prohibited industry as low	FALSE

Card network risk programs

The Visa Integrity Risk Program (VIRP) and the Mastercard Specialty Merchant Registration Program (SMRP) are card network registration programs for legal but high-risk merchant categories, keyed by MCC. Acquirers must register merchants that operate in these categories before processing their transactions. VIRP tiers its categories by the type of harm they present; SMRP is a flat, untiered list.

VIRP tier	Harm type	Example categories
1	Health and safety	Adult content, dating, gambling, pharmacy
2	Financial	Cryptocurrency, cyberlockers, skill games
3	Regulatory or deceptive	High-risk trading platforms, telemarketing, negative option billing, tobacco

A flag is not a bare MCC match. For broad MCCs, a flag requires confirmed qualifying activity: MCC 6051 flags only for actual cryptocurrency activity, not for money orders that share the code. Most categories are also in-program only for card-not-present activity, so a storefront-only merchant may not be flagged even when its MCC appears in a program.

Middesk surfaces these programs as risk_program_flags on industry classification categories. These flags are available only when you order Risk. Industry classification ordered on its own does not return them.

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