Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol lets a merchant recognize an agent it has never seen before. It defines three signatures: agent recognition based on HTTP Message Signatures and aligned with Web Bot Auth, a signed consumer or device identity, and a signed payment container.
Visa Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP)
Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol lets a merchant recognize an agent it has never seen before. It defines three signatures: agent recognition based on HTTP Message Signatures and aligned with Web Bot Auth, a signed consumer or device identity, and a signed payment container.
Where it stands
As of 2026-10-14, the Agentic Standards Map records:
Specification and sample code published by Visa under Visa Product Terms of October 10, 2025; the product page, read in a browser on 2026-10-14, still says “This product is in the process of development and deployment.”
Why it matters to agents
The merchant specification says “this protocol is applicable to the scenario when the Agent is initially unknown to the Merchant.” It defines three signatures: an agent recognition signature based on HTTP Message Signatures (RFC 9421) and aligned with web-bot-auth, a signed consumer or device identity and a signed payment container. …
Sources
- https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/trusted-agent-protocol
- https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/trusted-agent-protocol/trusted-agent-protocol-specifications
- https://developer.visa.com/capabilities/trusted-agent-protocol/product-terms
- https://github.com/visa/trusted-agent-protocol
- https://github.com/visa/trusted-agent-protocol/blob/main/README.md
Status and relevance quoted, shortened, from the Agentic Standards Map by Francesco Marinoni Moretto, CC BY 4.0, https://frmoretto.github.io/agentic-standards-map/. The full entry, with every dated source, is in map.json under visa-tap.
Industry: payments
Related standards
Standards this one builds on, supersedes, profiles or is commonly deployed beside.
