EMV is the family of card payment specifications created and managed by EMVCo, the technical body collectively owned by American Express, Discover, JCB, Mastercard, UnionPay and Visa. It began as the chip-card standard for in-store payments and now spans contactless, mobile, QR codes, e-commerce checkout, tokenisation, cardholder authentication, verifiable payment credentials and — in draft since 2026 — agentic payments. All EMV Specifications are available royalty free.
EMV
EMV is the specification family that card payments run on. It started with the chip in the card — the name comes from Europay, Mastercard and Visa — and is now maintained by EMVCo, owned jointly by the six global card networks, with hundreds of merchants, banks and technology providers taking part as Associates and Subscribers.
- In-store - EMV Contact Chip, EMV Contactless Chip and EMV Mobile cover the card, the tap, and the phone at the terminal.
- Online - EMV 3-D Secure, EMV Payment Tokenisation and EMV Secure Remote Commerce cover authentication, card-number protection and checkout.
- Account-to-account and emerging - EMV QR Codes, the EMV Digital Payment Credential, and the draft EMV Agentic Payments framework.
- Royalty free - Every EMV Specification is published free on the EMVCo website, with draft versions opened for public comment.
EMV matters to anyone reading payment APIs because it defines what a card payment is underneath every processor’s REST interface — the token, the cryptogram, the authentication result. And with the 2026 agentic payments framework, EMVCo has put the card networks’ coordinating body squarely into the question of how AI agents are allowed to pay.
Industry: Payments
Related standards
Standards this one builds on, supersedes, profiles or is commonly deployed beside.
EMV Contact Chip
The original EMV specification — the chip in the card.
EMV Contactless Chip
Tap-to-pay for cards and NFC devices.
EMV Mobile
Phones and wearables as cards, and as terminals.
EMV QR Codes
Merchant- and consumer-presented QR payments.
EMV 3-D Secure
Cardholder authentication for card-not-present payments.
EMV Payment Tokenisation
Tokens in place of card numbers.
EMV Secure Remote Commerce
The specification behind Click to Pay.
EMV Digital Payment Credential
A verifiable-credential schema for card authentication (draft).
EMV Agentic Payments Framework
Card-based payments made by AI agents (draft).
