This specification describes a web API to allow merchants (i.e. web sites selling physical or digital goods) to easily accept payments from different payment methods with minimal integration. User agents (e.g. browsers) will facilitate the payment flow between merchant and user.

The Web Platform Incubator Community Group is incubating this specification to gather feedback to refine the API. The specification is intended to align with the chartered scope of the Web Payments Working Group and it is possible that work on the API may be transferred to that group in future.

If you wish to make comments regarding this document, please contribute to the issues list in the GitHub repo. Pull requests with proposed text changes are welcome, but please note that you will be asked to join the Web Platform Incubator Community Group and agree to the CLA for any substantive proposals.

Introduction

Buying things on the web, particularly on mobile, is a frustrating experience for users. Every web site has its own flow and its own validation rules, and most require users to manually type in the same set of information over and over again. Likewise, it is difficult and time consuming for developers to create good checkout flows that support various payment schemes.

This specification describes an API that allows user agents (e.g. browsers) to act as an intermediary between the three key parties in every transaction: the merchant (e.g. an online web store), the buyer (e.g. the user buying from the online web store), and the Payment Method (e.g. credit card). Information necessary to process and confirm a transaction is passed between the Payment Method and the merchant via the user agent with the buyer confirming and authorizing as necessary across the flow.

In addition to better, more consistent user experiences, this also enables web sites to take advantage of more secure payment schemes (e.g. tokenization and system-level authentication) that are not possible with standard JavaScript libraries. This has the potential to reduce liability for the merchant and helps protect sensitive user information.

The API described in this document forms part of the Payment Request system described in the Payment Request Architecture [[PAYMENTARCH]] document.

Goals

Non-goals

As well as sections marked as non-normative, all authoring guidelines, diagrams, examples, and notes in this specification are non-normative. Everything else in this specification is normative.

This specification defines one class of products:

Conforming user agent

A user agent MUST behave as described in this specification in order to be considered conformant. In this specification, user agent means a Web browser or other interactive user agent as defined in [[!HTML5]].

User agents MAY implement algorithms given in this specification in any way desired, so long as the end result is indistinguishable from the result that would be obtained by the specification's algorithms.

A conforming Payment Request API user agent MUST also be a conforming implementation of the IDL fragments of this specification, as described in the “Web IDL” specification. [[!WEBIDL]]

Dependencies

This specification relies on several other underlying specifications.

Payment Request Document Architecture
The terms Payment Method, Payment App, and Payment Transaction Message Specification are defined by the Payment Request Architecture document [[PAYMENTARCH]].
Payment Request Document Architecture
The term Payment Method Identifier is defined by the Payment Method Identifiers specification [[!METHODIDENTIFIERS]].
HTML5
The terms global object, queue a task, browsing context, and top-level browsing context are defined by [[!HTML5]].
ECMA-262 6th Edition, The ECMAScript 2015 Language Specification
The terms Promise, internal slot, TypeError, JSON.stringify, and JSON.parse are defined by [[!ECMA-262-2015]].

This document uses the format object@[[\slotname]] to mean the internal slot [[\slotname]] of the object object.

The term JSON-serializable object used in this specification means an object that can be serialized to a string using JSON.stringify and later deserialized back to an object using JSON.parse with no loss of data.

DOM4
The Event type and the terms fire an event, dispatch flag, stop propagation flag, and stop immediate propagation flag are defined by [[!DOM4]].

DOMException and the following DOMException types from [[!DOM4]] are used:

TypeMessage (optional)
InvalidStateErrorThe object is in an invalid state
NotSupportedErrorThe payment method was not supported
SecurityErrorThe operation is only supported in a secure context
WebIDL
When this specification says to throw an error, the user agent must throw an error as described in [[!WEBIDL]]. When this occurs in a sub-algorithm, this results in termination of execution of the sub-algorithm and all ancestor algorithms until one is reached that explicitly describes procedures for catching exceptions.
Secure Contexts
The term secure context is defined by the Secure Contexts specification [[!POWERFUL-FEATURES]].

PaymentRequest interface

        [Constructor(sequence<DOMString> supportedMethods, PaymentDetails details, optional PaymentOptions options, optional object data)]
        interface PaymentRequest : EventTarget {
          Promise<PaymentResponse> show();
          void abort();

          readonly attribute ShippingAddress? shippingAddress;
          readonly attribute DOMString? shippingOption;

          /* Supports "shippingaddresschange" event */
          attribute EventHandler onshippingaddresschange;

          /* Supports "shippingoptionchange" event */
          attribute EventHandler onshippingoptionchange;
        };
      

A web page creates a PaymentRequest to make a payment request. This is typically associated with the user activating a "Buy", "Purchase", or "Checkout" button. The PaymentRequest allows the web page to exchange information with the user agent while the user is providing input before approving or denying a payment request.

The following example shows how to construct a PaymentRequest and begin the user interaction:

        var payment = new PaymentRequest(supportedMethods, details, options, data);
        payment.addEventListener("shippingaddresschange", function (changeEvent) {
            // Process shipping address change
        });

        payment.show().then(function(paymentResponse) {
          // Process paymentResponse
          // paymentResponse.methodName contains the selected payment method
          // paymentResponse.details contains a payment method specific response
          paymentResponse.complete(true);
        }).catch(function(err) {
          console.error("Uh oh, something bad happened", err.message);
        });
      

PaymentRequest constructor

The PaymentRequest is constructed using the supplied supportedMethods list, the payment details, the payment options, and any payment method specific data.

The supportedMethods sequence contains the payment method identifiers for the payment methods that the merchant web site accepts.

            ["visa", "bitcoin", "bobpay.com"]
          

The details object contains information about the transaction that the user is being asked to complete such as the line items in an order.

            {
              "items": [
                {
                  "id": "basket",
                  "label": "Sub-total",
                  "amount": { "currencyCode": "USD", "value" : "55.00" }, // US$55.00
                },
                {
                  "id": "tax",
                  "label": "Sales Tax",
                  "amount": { "currencyCode": "USD", "value" : "5.00" }, // US$5.00
                },
                {
                  "id": "total",
                  "label": "Total due",
                  "amount": { "currencyCode": "USD", "value" : "60.00" }, // US$60.00
                }
              ]
            }
          

The options object contains information about what options the web page wishes to use from the payment request system.

            {
              "requestShipping": true
            }
          

data is a JSON-serializable object that provides optional information that might be needed by the supported payment methods.

            {
              "bobpay.com": {
                  "merchantIdentifier": "XXXX",
                  "bobPaySpecificField": true
              },
              "bitcoin": {
                  "address": "XXXX"
              }
            }
          

The PaymentRequest constructor MUST act as follows:

  1. If the length of the supportedMethods sequence is zero, then throw a TypeError.
  2. If the global object of the script calling the constructor is not considered a secure context, then throw a SecurityError.
  3. If the browsing context of the script calling the constructor is not a top-level browsing context, then throw a SecurityError.

    There is an open issue about requiring a top-level browsing context for using PaymentRequest. Requiring one is a mitigation for a user being tricked into thinking a trusted site is asking for payment when in fact an untrusted iframe is asking for payment. The problem is some iframes may have a legitimate reason to request payment.

  4. If details does not contain a sequence of items with length greater than zero, then throw a TypeError.
  5. If data is not a JSON-serializable object, then throw a TypeError.
  6. If the name of any top level field of data does not match one of the payment method identifiers in supportedMethods, then throw a TypeError.
  7. If the value of any top level field is not a JSON-serializable object, then throw a TypeError.
  8. Let request be a new PaymentRequest.
  9. Store supportedMethods into request@[[\supportedMethods]].
  10. Store details into request@[[\details]].
  11. Store options into request@[[\options]].
  12. Store data into request@[[\data]].
  13. Set the value request@[[\state]] to created.
  14. Set the value of the shippingAddress attribute on request to null.
  15. Set the value of the shippingOption attribute on request to null.
  16. If details contains a shippingOptions sequence with a length of 1, then set shippingOption to the id of the only ShippingOption in the sequence.
  17. Set the value request@[[\updating]] to false.
  18. Return request.

show()

The show method is called when the page wants to begin user interaction for the payment request. The show method will return a Promise that will be resolved when the user accepts the payment request. Some kind of user interface will be shown to the user to facilitate the payment request after the show method returns.

The show method MUST act as follows:

  1. Let request be the PaymentRequest object on which the method is called..
  2. If the value of request@[[\state]] is not created then throw an InvalidStateError.
  3. Set the value of request@[[\state]] to interactive.
  4. Let acceptPromise be a new Promise.
  5. Store acceptPromise in request@[[\acceptPromise]].
  6. Return acceptPromise and asynchronously perform the remaining steps.
  7. Let acceptedMethods be the sequence of payment method identifiers request@[[\supportedMethods]] with all identifiers removed that the user agent does not accept.
  8. If the length of acceptedMethods is zero, then reject acceptPromise with a NotSupportedError.
  9. Show a user interface to allow the user to interact with the payment request process. The acceptPromise will later be resolved by the user accepts the payment request algorithm through interaction with the user interface.

abort()

The abort method may be called if the web page wishes to abort the payment request after the show method has been called and before the [[\acceptPromise]] has been resolved.

The abort method MUST act as follows:

  1. If the value of [[\state]] is not interactive then throw an InvalidStateError.
  2. Set the value of the internal slot [[\state]] to closed.
  3. Return from the method and asynchronously perform the remaining steps.
  4. Abort the current user interaction and close down any remaining user interface

State transitions

The internal slot [[\state]] follows the following state transitions:

shippingAddress

shippingAddress is populated when the user provides a shipping address. It is null by default. When a user provides a shipping address, the shipping address changed algorithm runs.

onshippingaddresschange is an EventHandler for an Event named shippingaddresschange.

shippingOption

shippingOption is populated when the user chooses a shipping option. It is null by default. When a user chooses a shipping option, the shipping option changed algorithm runs.

onshippingoptionchange is an EventHandler for an Event named shippingoptionchange.

Internal Slots

Instances of PaymentRequest are created with the internal slots in the following table:

Internal SlotDescription (non-normative)
[[\supportedMethods]] The supportMethods supplied to the constructor.
[[\details]] The current PaymentDetails for the payment request initially supplied to the constructor and then updated with calls to updateWith.
[[\options]] The PaymentOptions supplied to the constructor.
[[\data]] The payment method specific data supplied to the constructor used by a Payment App to influence the app's behavior.
[[\state]] The current state of the payment request.
[[\updating]] true is there is a pending updateWith call to update the payment request and false otherwise.
[[\acceptPromise]] The pending Promise created during show that will be resolved if the user accepts the payment request.

CurrencyAmount

dictionary CurrencyAmount {
  required DOMString currencyCode;
  required DOMString value;
};
      

A CurrencyAmount dictionary is used to supply monetary amounts. The following fields MUST be supplied for a CurrencyAmount to be valid:

currencyCode
currencyCode is a string containing a three-letter alphabetic code for the currency as defined by [[!ISO4217]]. For example, "USD" for US Dollars.
value
A string containing the decimal monetary value. If a decimal separator is needed then the string MUST use a single U+002E FULL STOP character as the decimal separator. The string MUST begin with a single U+002D HYPHEN-MINUS character if the value is negative. All other characters must be characters in the range U+0030 DIGIT ZERO (0) to U+0039 DIGIT NINE (9).
The string should match the regular expression ^-?[0-9]+(\.[0-9]+)?$.

The following example shows how to represent US$55.00.

{
  "currencyCode": "USD",
  "value" : "55.00"
}
      

PaymentDetails dictionary

dictionary PaymentDetails {
  sequence<PaymentItem> items;
  sequence<ShippingOption> shippingOptions;
};
      

The PaymentDetails dictionary is passed to the PaymentRequest constructor and provides information about the requested transaction. The PaymentDetails dictionary is also used to update the payment request using updateWith.

The following fields are part of the PaymentDetails dictionary:

items
This sequence of PaymentItem dictionaries indicates what the payment request is for. The sequence must contain at least one PaymentItem. The last PaymentItem in the sequence represents the total amount of the payment request. It is the responsibility of the calling code to ensure that the total amount is the sum of the preceding items. The user agent MAY not validate that this is true.
shippingOptions
A sequence containing the different shipping options that the use may choose from.

If the sequence is empty, then this indicates that the merchant cannot ship to the current shippingAddress.

If the sequence only contains one item, then this is the shipping option that will be used and shippingOption will be set to the id of this option without running the shipping option changed algorithm.

PaymentOptions dictionary

dictionary PaymentOptions {
  boolean requestShipping = false;
};
      

The PaymentOptions dictionary is passed to the PaymentRequest constructor and provides information about the options desired for the payment request.

The following fields MAY be passed to the PaymentRequest constructor:

requestShipping
This boolean value indicates whether the user agent should collect and return a shipping address as part of the payment request. For example, this would be set to true when physical goods need to be shipped by the merchant to the user. This would be set to false for an online-only electronic purchase transaction. If this value is not supplied then the the PaymentRequest behaves as if a value of false had been supplied.

PaymentItem dictionary

        dictionary PaymentItem {
          required DOMString id;
          required DOMString label;
          required CurrencyAmount amount;
        };
      

A sequence of one or more PaymentItem dictionaries is included in the PaymentDetails dictionary to indicate the what the payment request is for and the value asked for.

The following fields MUST be included in a PaymentItem for it to be valid:

id
This is a string identifier used to reference this PaymentItem. It MUST be unique for a given PaymentRequest.
label
This is a human-readable description of the item. The user agent may display this to the user.
amount
A CurrencyAmount containing the monetary amount for the item.
There is an open issue about whether there needs to be consideration of differences between the currency specified by the merchant for the transaction amount and the currencies that the payment method might support.

ShippingAddress interface

        interface ShippingAddress {
          /* [...] fields TBC */
        };
      

If the requestShipping flag was set to true in the PaymentOptions passed to the PaymentRequest constructor, then the user agent will populate the shippingAddress field of the PaymentRequest object with the user's selected shipping address.

The fields of the ShippingAddress interface are yet to be defined.
There is an open question about what data beyond shipping address the merchant might be able to request from the user agent. For example, billing address, contact phone number, e-mail address, or proof of age.

ShippingOption interface

        dictionary ShippingOption {
          required string id;
          required string label;
          required CurrencyAmount amount;
        };
      

The ShippingOption dictionary has fields describing a shipping option. A web page can provide the user with one or more shipping options by calling the updateWith method in response to a change event.

The following fields MUST be included in a PaymentItem for it to be valid:

id
This is a string identifier used to reference this ShippingOption. It MUST be unique for a given PaymentRequest.
label
This is a human-readable description of the item. The user agent SHOULD use this string to display the shipping option to the user.
amount
A CurrencyAmount containing the monetary amount for the item.

PaymentResponse interface

        interface PaymentResponse {
          readonly attribute DOMString methodName;
          readonly attribute object details;

          Promise<void> complete(boolean success);
        };
      

A PaymentResponse is returned when a user has selected a payment method and approved a payment request. It contains the following fields:

methodName
The payment method identifier for the payment method that the user selected to fulfil the transaction.
details
A JSON-serializable object that provides a payment method specific message used by the merchant to process the transaction and determine successful fund transfer.

complete()

The complete method must be called after the user has accepted the payment request and the [[\acceptPromise]] has been resolved. The complete method takes a boolean argument that indicates the payment was successfully processed if true and that processing failed if false. Calling the complete method tells the user agent that the user interaction is over (and should cause any remaining user interface to be closed).

The complete method MUST act as follows:

  1. Let promise be a new Promise.
  2. If the value of the internal slot [[\completeCalled]] is true, then throw an InvalidStateError.
  3. Set the value of the internal slot [[\completeCalled]] to true.
  4. Return promise and asynchronously perform the remaining steps.
  5. Pass the value of success to the Payment App that accepted the payment request.
  6. Close down any remaining user interface.
  7. Resolve promise with undefined.
There is an open issue about whether there should be a way for a merchant to keep the user informed about the progress of a tranaction after the user approves the payment request.

Internal Slots

Instances of PaymentResponse are created with the internal slots in the following table:

Internal SlotDescription (non-normative)
[[\completeCalled]] true if the complete method has been called and false otherwise.

Events

Summary

Event nameInterfaceDispatched when...
shippingaddresschange PaymentRequestUpdateEvent The user provides a new shipping address.
shippingoptionchange PaymentRequestUpdateEvent The user chooses a new shipping option.

PaymentRequestUpdateEvent

[Constructor(DOMString type, optional PaymentRequestUpdateEventInit eventInitDict)]
interface PaymentRequestUpdateEvent : Event {
  void updateWith(Promise<PaymentDetails> d);
};

dictionary PaymentRequestUpdateEventInit : EventInit {
};
        

The PaymentRequestUpdateEvent enables the web page to update the details of the payment request in response to a user interaction.

If the web page wishes to update the payment request then it should call updateWith and provide a promise that will resolve with a PaymentDetails dictionary containing changed values that the user agent SHOULD present to the user.

The PaymentRequestUpdateEvent constructor MUST set the internal slot [[\waitForUpdate]] to false.

The updateWith method MUST act as follows:

  1. Let target be the PaymentRequest object that is the target of the event.
  2. If the dispatch flag is unset, then throw an InvalidStateError.
  3. If [[\waitForUpdate]] is true, then throw an InvalidStateError.
  4. If target@[[\state]] is not interactive, then throw an InvalidStateError.
  5. If target@[[\updating]] is true, then throw an InvalidStateError.
  6. Set the stop propagation flag and stop immediate propagation flag.
  7. Set [[\waitForUpdate]] to true.
  8. Set target@[[\updating]] to true.
  9. The user agent SHOULD disable the user interface that allows the user to accept the payment request. This is to ensure that the payment is not accepted until the web page has made changes required by the change. The web page MUST settle the promise d to indicate that the payment request is valid again.

    The user agent SHOULD disable any part of the user interface that could cause another update event to be fired. Only one update may be processed at a time.

    We should consider adding a timeout mechanism so that if the page never resolves the promise within a reasonable amount of time then the user agent behaves as if the promise was rejected.
  10. Return from the method and asynchronously perform the remaining steps.
  11. Wait until d settles.
  12. If d is resolved with details and details is a PaymentDetails dictionary, then:
    1. If details contains an items value, then copy this value to the items field of target@[[\details]].
    2. If details contains a shippingOptions sequence, then copy this value to the shippingOptions field of target@[[\details]].
    3. Let newOption be null.
    4. If details contains a shippingOptions sequence with a length of 1, then set newOption to the id of the only ShippingOption in the sequence.
    5. Set the value of shippingOption on target to newOption.
  13. Set [[\waitForUpdate]] to false.
  14. Set target@[[\updating]] to false.
  15. The user agent should update the user interface based on any changed values in target. The user agent SHOULD re-enable user interface elements that might have been disabled in the steps above if appropriate.

Algorithms

When the internal slot [[\state]] of a PaymentRequest object is set to interactive, the user agent will trigger the following algorithms based on user interaction.

Shipping address changed algorithm

The shipping address changed algorithm runs when the user provides a new shipping address. It MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let request be the PaymentRequest object that the user is interacting with.
  2. Let name be shippingaddresschange.
  3. Set the shippingAddress attribute on request to the shipping address provided by the user.
  4. Run the PaymentRequest updated algorithm with request and name.

Shipping option changed algorithm

The shipping option changed algorithm runs when the user chooses a new shipping option. It MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let request be the PaymentRequest object that the user is interacting with.
  2. Let name be shippingoptionchange.
  3. Set the shippingOption attribute on request to the id string of the ShippingOption provided by the user.
  4. Run the PaymentRequest updated algorithm with request and name.

PaymentRequest updated algorithm

The PaymentRequest updated algorithm is run by other algorithms above to fire an event to indicate that a user has made a change to a PaymentRequest called request with an event name of name.

It MUST run the following steps:

  1. If the request@[[\updating]] is true, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. Only one update may take place at a time. This should never occur.
  2. If the request@[[\state]] is not set to interactive, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. The user agent user interface should ensure that this never occurs.
  3. Let event be a new PaymentRequestUpdateEvent.
  4. Queue a task to fire an event named name of type event at request.

User agent delegates payment request algorithm

The PaymentRequest interface allows a web page to call abort to tell the user agent to abort the payment request and to tear down any user interface that might be shown. For example, a web page may choose to do this the goods they are selling are only available for a limited amount of time. If the user does not accept the payment request within the allowed time period, then the request will be aborted.

A user agent may not always be able to abort a request. For example, if the user agent has delegated responsibility for the request to another app. To support this situation, the user agent must run the User agent delegates payment request algorithm. The algorithm MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let request be the PaymentRequest object that the user is interacting with.
  2. If the request@[[\updating]] is true, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. The user agent user interface should ensure that this never occurs.
  3. If the request@[[\state]] is not interactive, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. The user agent user interface should ensure that this never occurs.
  4. Set request@[[\state]] to delegated.

We believe there are user agent configurations that can cause the UI to get into a state where cancellation by the web page during user interaction is difficult. Users should still be able to cancel the payment but script will not be able to. We need to investigate in more detail the consequences of this and whether it is really needed.

If we specify delegated then it isn't necessary for all user agents to be able to move to this state but it would be necessary for all payment flows that wish to call abort to account for the situation where this may fail in the delegated state.

User accepts the payment request algorithm

The user accepts the payment request algorithm runs when the user accepts the payment request and confirms that they want to pay. It MUST run the following steps:

  1. Let request be the PaymentRequest object that the user is interacting with.
  2. If the request@[[\updating]] is true, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. The user agent user interface should ensure that this never occurs.
  3. If request@[[\state]] is not interactive and the not delegated, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. The user agent user interface should ensure that this never occurs.
  4. If the requestShipping value of request@[[\options]] is true, then if the shippingAddress attribute of request is null or if the shippingOption attribute of request is null, then terminate this algorithm and take no further action. This should never occur.
  5. Let response be a new PaymentResponse.
  6. Set the methodName attribute value of response to the payment method identifier for the payment method that the user selected to accept the payment.
  7. Set the details attribute value of response to a JSON-serializable object containing the payment method specific message used by the merchant to process the transaction. The format of this response will be defined by a Payment Transaction Message Specification.
  8. Set response@[[\completeCalled]] to false.
  9. Set request@[[\state]] to closed.
  10. Resolve the pending promise request@[[\acceptPromise]].