Tap to Pay
Use Tap to Pay on iPhone to accept in-person contactless payments with a compatible iPhone and the Stripe Terminal SDK. Tap to Pay on iPhone includes support for Visa, Mastercard, American Express contactless cards, and NFC-based mobile wallets (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay). PIN entry is supported in eligible markets. Discover support is also included in the US only. Stripe includes Tap to Pay on iPhone in the Terminal iOS SDK and enables payments directly in your iOS mobile app.
Note
For platforms, use of Tap to Pay on iPhone is subject to the Apple Acceptance Platform User Terms and Conditions.
Availability
Available in Beta
Note
Platforms and businesses located outside the US aren’t permitted to use Tap to Pay on iPhone unless participating in our international beta program. If you’re interested in joining the beta program, please contact us.
Get started
Tap to Pay on iPhone requires the latest version of the Terminal iOS SDK, and introduces a connectLocalMobileReader method and an SCPDiscoveryMethodLocalMobile discovery option.
You must first set up the Terminal iOS SDK. After you’re familiar with the iOS SDK, you can start supporting Tap to Pay on iPhone within your application.
Entitlements and build file
To use Tap to Pay on iPhone to accept payments, your application must request and configure the Tap to Pay on iPhone entitlement from your Apple Developer account. Instructions for requesting this entitlement can be found here.
After you add an entitlements file to your app build target, add the following:
| Key | com.apple.developer.proximity-reader.payment.acceptance |
| Value type | boolean |
| Value | true or 1 |
Supported devices
Tap to Pay on iPhone requires:
- An iPhone XS or later running iOS 16.0 or later in the United States.
- An iPhone XS or later running iOS 16.4 or later in Australia and the United Kingdom.
- An iPhone XS or later running iOS 17.0 or later in France.
We recommend asking your users to update to the latest iOS version for the best performance.
Note
Tap to Pay won’t work on beta releases of iOS.
Cardholder verification limits and fallback
Some contactless card transactions above certain amounts might require additional cardholder verification methods (CVM) such as PIN entry. Tap to Pay on iPhone supports PIN entry for devices running iOS 16.4+. NFC wallet payments (Apple Pay, Google Pay, and Samsung Pay) might not be subject to these same limits.
In the UK, some cards might be required to be inserted into a device due to Strong Customer Authentication requirements, which depend on your issuer. In that case, the payment will be declined before the PIN screen appears with the reason offline_pin_required. In that scenario, we recommend instructing the customer to use a different card or another method to collect payment, such as a Terminal card reader or sending a Stripe Payment Link.
Best practices and promotion guidelines
Follow the Human Interface Guidelines for Tap to Pay on iPhone to ensure of an optimal user experience and successful review process with Apple.
Consider the following:
- Connect to the reader in the background on app startup to reduce wait times when collecting a payment.
- Reconnect to the reader when the app comes to the foreground to reduce wait times.
- Provide merchant education to guide your users on how to accept contactless payments on a compatible iPhone, including in-product promotion and text or email alerts. See Apple’s developer marketing guidance and merchant education for more ideas.