Agent Payments Protocol (AP2)

Industryspecificationcore entry

Verified 2026-10-14. Status as of 2026-10-13. All entries.

Seams: S4

Status

Open protocol in the GitHub organisation google-agentic-commerce (Apache-2.0); latest release v0.2.0 of 2026-04-28, which "focuses on providing Human Not Present flows"; core specification donated to FIDO.

Relevance

AP2 is available as an extension for A2A and for UCP; its objects are mandates, signed Verifiable Digital Credentials, and the FIDO blog of 2026-05-26 names "Checkout Mandate: This captures the details about and conditions on what the user wants to buy." and "Payment Mandate : This captures the details about and conditions on how the user wants to pay (amount, instrument, timing)." The docs say the Checkout Mandate is shared with the merchant, so the seller is a recipient of the user's signed purchase terms.

The record the other way, the Mandate Receipt that the Verifier signs, is described with a result field in docs/ap2/agent_authorization.md and with a status field in the normative schemas, at the same commit e1ea56d (see issue #374 in the open proposals). UCP's AP2 mandates extension has businesses embed a signature over the checkout terms.

Committed next

Standardisation continues in the FIDO Agentic Authentication and Payments Technical Working Groups (repository docs) (undated) [maintainer or chair statement] https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/main/docs/index.md
The FIDO Alliance will provide reports as its agentic workstreams progress (undated) [official decision or commitment] https://fidoalliance.org/fido-alliance-to-develop-standards-for-trusted-ai-agent-interactions/

Boundary

The docs index (docs/index.md at commit e1ea56d, the head of main on 2026-10-13) says the initial version supports pull payment methods such as credit and debit cards and that the roadmap includes e-wallets, push payments such as real-time bank transfers, and digital currencies; docs/index.md describes "the initial version" as supporting these payment methods, and the latest release is v0.2.0 (2026-04-28).

Sources

https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/releases/tag/v0.2.0 official decision or commitment, read 2026-10-13 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/main/docs/index.md normative text, read 2026-10-13 · archived
https://fidoalliance.org/fido-alliance-to-develop-standards-for-trusted-ai-agent-interactions/ official decision or commitment, read 2026-10-03 · archived
https://fidoalliance.org/building-the-trust-layer-for-agentic-payments-with-ap2-and-verifiable-intent/ maintainer or chair statement, read 2026-10-03 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/issues/374 participant or third party, read 2026-10-13 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/e1ea56db72a6385bce3e5c1112b3a56ce60acb43/docs/ap2/specification.md normative text, read 2026-10-13 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/e1ea56db72a6385bce3e5c1112b3a56ce60acb43/docs/ap2/agent_authorization.md normative text, read 2026-10-05
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/e1ea56db72a6385bce3e5c1112b3a56ce60acb43/code/sdk/schemas/ap2/checkout_receipt.json normative text, read 2026-10-05 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/e1ea56db72a6385bce3e5c1112b3a56ce60acb43/docs/ap2/flows.md normative text, read 2026-10-13 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/e1ea56db72a6385bce3e5c1112b3a56ce60acb43/docs/ap2/checkout_mandate.md normative text, read 2026-10-14 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md normative text, read 2026-10-03 · archived
https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/main/docs/faq.md normative text, read 2026-10-03 · archived

Overlaps

Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), Verifiable Intent, FIDO Alliance agentic authentication and payments work, Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP)

Neighbours in the map

Solid lines: overlaps declared by one of the two entries. Dashed lines, coloured by seam: entries named by the same seam (S1 to S4) in the seams note. Every node is a link.

Evidence and coverage

Read: On 2026-10-13: the release list (latest v0.2.0, 2026-04-28), the head of main (commit e1ea56d, 2026-04-29, unchanged since the reading of 2026-10-05), docs/index.md, docs/ap2/agent_authorization.md, checkout_receipt.json and receipt_status.json at that commit, and issue #374,. Also on 2026-10-13, at the same commit: docs/ap2/specification.md (section Checkout Mandate, which holds the sentence "Once the Merchant has accepted or rejected the Checkout Mandate, it MUST return a Checkout Receipt."), flows.md (receipt passages), the Checkout Receipt section of checkout_mandate.md (which holds the schema fields), and a search of the seven documents of docs/ap2 for the words refund, cancel and fulfil(l), recounted on 2026-10-14. google-agentic-commerce/AP2, 2026-10-03: metadata, releases v0.2.0 and v0.1.0, README, CONTRIBUTING.md, docs/index.md, docs/faq.md; FIDO release of 2026-04-28 and blog of 2026-05-26, in full; at commit e1ea56d on 2026-10-05: docs/ap2/specification.md, docs/ap2/agent_authorization.md and code/sdk/schemas/ap2/checkout_receipt.json.
Not read: The mandate pages checkout_mandate.md and payment_mandate.md beyond the receipt sections, other code, commits, issues, FIDO working group charters.
Not found: Not found in the seven documents of docs/ap2 at commit e1ea56d (agent_authorization, checkout_mandate, flows, implementation_considerations, payment_mandate, security_and_privacy_considerations, specification), 2026-10-14: refund and cancel (0 occurrences each).

Open proposals

Proposal	Author	Date	State	Link
Issue #374: the Mandate Receipt is described with a `result` field of `["success", "error"]` (docs/ap2/agent_authorization.md, lines 503 to 516) and with a `status` field of `Success` or `Error` (code/sdk/schemas/ap2/checkout_receipt.json and types/receipt_status.json), both read at commit e1ea56d; no comment on the issue on 2026-10-13.	a participant	2026-10-11	open	https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/issues/374

Payment comparison row

Owner / governance: Organisation google-agentic-commerce, Apache-2.0; core specification donated to FIDO (repository); FIDO Payments TWG to develop it
Version and state: v0.2.0 (2026-04-28), v0.1.0 (2025-09-16); standardisation continues in FIDO working groups
What it signs: Mandates (signed Verifiable Digital Credentials): Checkout Mandate (shared with merchant), Payment Mandate (instrument, amount)
Who signs: Closed mandates: the User (Human Present) or an Agent key (Human Not Present), whose trust "is provided by open Mandates that are signed by the User or a trust list of Agent Providers"; the Merchant provides "a merchant-signed JWT containing the Checkout" (docs/ap2/specification.md, Modes and Checkout Mandate, commit e1ea56d, 2026-10-05); FAQ: "user-signed Checkout Mandate"
Receipt or record: Checkout Receipt, returned by the Merchant after accepting or rejecting the Checkout Mandate, with fields status (Success or Error), iss, iat, reference (hash of the closed Mandate) and order_id on Success (checkout_receipt.json); a Mandate Receipt is "a Verifier-signed JWT" (agent_authorization.md); a "signed Payment Receipt" is returned by the Merchant Payment Processor (specification.md); all at commit e1ea56d, 2026-10-05; chained mandates give a verifiable audit trail (docs/index.md)
Dispute: FAQ: in a dispute the network adjudicator can use the user-signed Checkout Mandate; dispute process: "outside the scope of this specification" (docs/ap2/specification.md, section Dispute Evidence, commit e1ea56d, read 2026-10-14)
Source: https://github.com/google-agentic-commerce/AP2/blob/main/docs/index.md