TLID Mastercard

What is TLID

The Transaction Link Identifier (TLID) is a unique identifier generated by the Mastercard card brand during a transaction. It is used to ensure continuity between related transactions.

Use cases

The TLID must be used in scenarios such as:

• Recurring payments;
• Future installments;
• Post-authorization charges;
• Card-on-file transactions.

How TLID works at Cielo

General flow

1. The client initiates an initial transaction (CIT).
2. The transaction is authorized by the card brand/issuer.
3. Mastercard returns the TLID.
4. Cielo returns the TLID in the API response.
5. The merchant stores the TLID.
6. Starting October 23, 2026: In future transactions (MIT), the merchant must send the TLID to maintain the link.

ℹ️

TLID goal: ensure that subsequent transactions are recognized as part of the same transactional context, as required by the Mastercard card brand.

Implementation phases

The availability of TLID at Cielo will occur in two phases:

Phase 1: TLID availability (July 1, 2026)

Starting on this date:

• TLID will be returned in responses for Mastercard transactions in the following operations:
  • VerifyCard by card number;
  • Create a credit card payment;
  • Create a debit card payment;
  • Create recurring payment;
  • Get payment details via PaymentId. The query by PaymentId allows you to retrieve the identifier if it was not previously stored.

Example of the returned field:

"Payment":{
    "TransactionLinkId": "mK8vT2qA-9LpX7dWc3Rf_HsD1Z"
}

Objective of Phase 1: allow the merchant to start storing the TLID for future use.

Phase 2: mandatory TLID submission (October 23, 2026)

Starting on this date:

• Sending the TLID becomes mandatory in merchant-initiated transactions (MIT);
• The TLID must be included in the request to reference the previous transaction, whether initiated by the cardholder (CIT) or by the merchant (MIT).

Objective of Phase 2: ensure compliance with Mastercard rules for transaction linking.

Parameters for sending the TLID from October onward will be made available in the Cielo APIs soon.

⚠️

The use of TransactionLinkId does not eliminate the requirement to send IssuerTransactionId. See more details in IssuerTransactionId.