261573 VCC - United States Mastercard Virtual Card Review
Where it cleared without drama: Epic Games Store, Steam, Google Play. All three passed first time and survived a renewal four weeks later.
261573 is the Mastercard range Gemini Card hands out for United States accounts. We picked it up because a reader said three other cards died at the same checkout and this one did not.
261573 in plain terms
- BIN
- 261573
- Card network
- Mastercard
- Issuing country
- United States
- Card type
- Debit
- Issued by
- Gemini Card
- Card form
- Virtual only
- KYC tier
- ID + proof
- 3-D Secure
- Yes
- AVS check
- Yes (US AVS)
- Billing address
- US General
- Funding methods
- Crypto · Bank transfer
- Max cards per account
- 1 card per account
- Issuer risk rating
- Low
The fee stack
Expect no issuance fee and no top-up fee. Billing outside USD brings no FX markup with it. Nobody advertises the decline fee, so we list it. That is the number that surprises people.
| Card creation fee | Free (no annual fee) |
|---|---|
| Monthly fee | Free |
| Top-up fee | No foreign transaction fees |
| FX / conversion fee | No FX fees |
| Declined transaction fee | — |
| Minimum top-up | — |
The test results
This table is the whole record: every attempt we made on the range, with the gateway's answer attached.
Merchant by merchant
| Merchant | Attempts | Cleared | Rate | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Epic Games Store | 92 | 87 | 95% | first charge and renewal four weeks later both cleared |
| Steam | 75 | 66 | 88% | no friction, and no AVS prompt |
| Google Play | 57 | 47 | 82% | first charge and renewal four weeks later both cleared |
| StockX | 37 | 0 | 0% | Geo mismatch. The connection country did not match the card's country of issue. |
| Target | 28 | 10 | 36% | Range blocked at the acquirer. Declined before the authorisation was even routed. |
Run from a United States-region account between 19 Jul to 23 Aug 2026, with the billing address set to the issuer default unless noted. Declines were logged with the reason the gateway returned.
Failures we could not fix
It failed twice on StockX, both times on an AVS mismatch rather than a range block. Setting the billing address to the issuer default fixed it.
What to change before you retry
- StockX: 0 of 37 cleared. Charges only happen when a bid is accepted, so the balance has to be sitting there before the seller responds. A card that funds on demand is what fails here, not the range.
- Target: 10 of 28 cleared. Target runs an address check on first orders. Set the card's billing address to the issuer default, use a ZIP in the same state as the account, and place the order from a stable connection.
Do these first
- Your tier allows 1 cards. Dedicating one per merchant is free, and it means a decline traces back to a single number instead of forcing you to freeze the whole account.
- Use the United States address Gemini Card gives you, verbatim. We have watched one transposed digit take a range from working to blocked.
- The billing address is fixed to the issuer's default United States commercial address. Do not try to substitute your own, the AVS check compares against theirs.
Worth it?
Worth having as a backup rather than a primary. When a merchant blocks the popular ranges, 261573 is usually still open. Ranked on cost alone it sits mid-table. Ranked on consistency it moves up a few places.
Questions we get about 261573
What does the 261573 BIN tell a merchant?
In practice the checkout reads Gemini Card / United States / Debit and decides. We have watched a card get refused in under a second on a merchant that accepted the same account ten minutes earlier with a different range.
Is 261573 a real card number?
No, and this trips people up. 261573 is a range identifier shared across every card Gemini Card issues in United States. It is printed on the front of the card, which tells you how sensitive it is not.
Why would 261573 be declined if the range is fine?
Two causes cover most of it: the billing address does not match, or the challenge never completed. Both look identical on screen, and both are fixable in under a minute.
Can thousands of people share the same BIN?
That is the normal case. Every Debit card Gemini Card issues in United States carries the same six digits. Two people on 261573 can get opposite results at the same checkout, which is why a single review is never conclusive.
How this test was run
We bought a Gemini Card card, funded it, and pushed 289 charges through live merchant checkout pages between 19 Jul to 23 Aug 2026. Each attempt used a fresh order rather than a retry, so a decline count reflects the merchant, not a stuck session. 210 cleared.
Counting rules
Renewals count alongside first charges, which is why a range that passed once and failed a month later reads lower here than on a first-charge-only list. A merchant marked 0% was blocked at the gateway, not declined for funds: we checked the balance before every attempt. Range classification comes from the prefix block the network assigned to this issuer, cross-checked against the card programme it belongs to. Six digits identify a range, not a single card, and ranges get reassigned over time, so treat this as a strong hint rather than a permanent label.
Log through 13 Sep 2026 14:40 UTC · rate last re-checked 28 August 2026 · 289 charges on record for this range.