FAPI 2.0 Security Profile

The FAPI 2.0 Security Profile is the second generation of the OpenID Foundation’s FAPI work: an API security profile “suitable for high-security applications based on the OAuth 2.0 Authorization Framework.” It reached Final status on 22 February 2025. It was born in open banking, but the specification says plainly that it applies anywhere the data is high value — health, government and beyond. Germany’s federal API authorization blueprint builds its profile for high and very-high protection needs on FAPI 2.0.

• Confidential clients only - Clients must authenticate with mutual TLS or private_key_jwt. Shared secrets and public clients are out.
• PAR is not optional - Authorization requests go through Pushed Authorization Requests. The authorization server rejects any that don’t, and the front channel carries only client_id and request_uri.
• PKCE with S256 everywhere - PKCE replaces state as the CSRF defense, and the client generates a fresh challenge for every request.
• Sender-constrained tokens only - Access tokens are bound through mTLS (RFC 8705) or DPoP (RFC 9449). FAPI 1.0 allowed mTLS only.
• code is the only response type - ID tokens move to the back channel. The authorization server must return iss in the authorization response (RFC 9207) to stop mix-up attacks.
• Tight numbers - Authorization codes live at most 60 seconds and are single-use. PAR request_uri values expire in under 600 seconds. Credentials carry at least 128 bits of entropy.
• A fixed cryptography floor - TLS 1.2 or later, JWTs signed with PS256, ES256 or EdDSA (Ed25519), and never none.
• Built on an attacker model - A companion FAPI 2.0 Attacker Model states the security goals, and the profile has been formally analyzed against it.

Compared with FAPI 1.0, the profile is shorter and stricter. JAR and JARM give way to PAR and a plain code response, redirect URIs travel in the pushed request instead of being pre-registered, and DPoP joins mTLS as a sender-constraining option. Message-level signing lives in a separate FAPI 2.0 Message Signing specification, for ecosystems that need non-repudiation. For an API program, FAPI 2.0 is the easiest way to get a high-assurance OAuth stack without writing your own profile: point to it, and pass the OpenID Foundation certification suite. See Profile, Don’t Invent for how Germany did exactly that.

Industry: Finance