Glossary
What is Visa's Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP)?
Definition
Visa’s Trusted Agent Protocol (TAP) helps merchants tell a legitimate AI shopping agent from a malicious bot. Approved agents sign their requests, so a merchant can check which agent is visiting and that it’s acting for a real Visa cardholder. Visa groups it with its wider program for agent payments, Visa Intelligent Commerce.
Also called: Trusted Agent Protocol, Visa TAP
At a glance
- CategoriesCommerce
- Related fieldsCommerce, Technical
- DifficultyIntermediate
At a glance
- Announced by Visa in October 2025, built with Cloudflare.
- About agent identity, not checkout or product data.
- Builds on the same idea as Web Bot Auth: check a signature instead of trusting a label.
- Visa named Stripe and Shopify among the early partners that gave feedback on it.
What it means for brands
Most site security treats every bot as a threat, so real shopping agents can get blocked at the door. A user agent string saying “I’m an agent” is easy to fake. A signed request isn’t. Ask your CDN, bot management vendor and processor whether they support TAP.
How this term is used
Agentic commerce is early, and its terms and standards are still forming. It’s the commerce branch of AI search marketing, built on organic GEO / AEO visibility.
It’s one of several competing standards; agentic commerce protocols compares them side by side.
Frequently asked questions
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Does Visa TAP handle checkout or payment?
No. It tells a merchant which agent is visiting and that it’s acting for a real cardholder. Checkout and payment run through your usual flow, or through standards like AP2.