A small-ticket transaction is a payment of low value, such as a coffee, newspaper, vending machine purchase, transit fare or parking charge. The exact threshold varies by country, card scheme and merchant, but the defining feature is that the amount is small enough for speed and cost to matter more than the extra security checks used for larger payments.
Small tickets raise two practical issues. First, fixed fees weigh heavily: a per-transaction fee that is trivial on a large sale can consume much of the margin on a very small one, so card schemes and acquirers offer special small-ticket interchange categories or pricing, and some merchants prefer micropayment aggregation. Second, checkout must be quick, so schemes allow contactless payments below a contactless transaction limit without a PIN or signature, and transit systems may authorise offline and settle later. In Europe, low-value payments can also fall under an SCA exemption.