List of Application Identifiers (AID)

An application identifier (AID) names one application on a smart card: a Visa or Mastercard payment application, a transit ticketing application, the PIV application on a US government ID card, the passport application in an ePassport. Terminals use AIDs to find and select the application they need, and payment receipts often print the AID that was used. This page explains how AIDs are built and gives a reference list of AIDs we have confirmed in published documents, each with its sources.

What the AID on a card receipt means

Chip-card receipts usually carry a line such as AID: A0000000031010. It identifies the payment application on the card that the terminal selected for the transaction: which scheme, and in some cases which variant (for example a debit-routing application). It is not your card number and does not identify you. Visa’s acceptance guidance requires the AID on chip-transaction receipts and recommends printing the application’s name next to it, and payment processors list the AID among the standard receipt fields.

A US debit card can carry two applications from the same scheme: a global one and a “common debit” one used for routing debit transactions within the United States. Which one appears on the receipt tells you which application the terminal selected; processor guidance for merchants uses exactly this to check debit routing. All other AIDs are in the full list below.

How an AID is built

A0 00 00 00 03 | 10 10
|---- RID -----|- PIX -|
   5 bytes      0 to 11 bytes      (whole AID: up to 16 bytes)

• RID (registered application provider identifier): five bytes registered to an organisation under ISO/IEC 7816-5. A000000003 is Visa’s, A000000004 Mastercard’s, A000000308 NIST’s.
• PIX (proprietary application identifier extension): up to eleven bytes chosen by that organisation to tell its applications, versions or products apart.

Registration is what keeps AIDs unique: two organisations with their own RIDs cannot collide. A few AIDs in the list do not start with a registered RID: some regulations define proprietary AIDs (the EU tachograph values starting with FF), and some applications are named by ASCII text (the Calypso …ICA headers).

Full and partial AIDs

A terminal or host does not always select an application by its complete AID. Many cards accept a partial (right-truncated) AID, for example just the RID and the first PIX byte, and then select the first application that starts with those bytes; the terminal can ask for the next match to find others. Payment terminals are commonly configured with such prefixes, which is why the list contains entries like A00000002501 (American Express) next to complete AIDs. Industry guidance for terminal operators recommends supporting partial matching, because it is the only way to find several applications of the same scheme on one card. Phones that emulate cards are different: Android host-based card emulation does not support partial selection by the reader. Our guides to application discovery and selection and to implementing application selection explain the mechanics.

Where developers meet AIDs

• SELECT commands. An application is selected with the APDU 00 A4 04 00 Lc AID 00 (see our APDU reference).
• Terminal configuration. A terminal holds the list of AIDs it accepts; card data objects such as 4F (the card’s AID) and 9F06 (the terminal’s AID) carry them in transaction data (see our tag reference).
• Card directories. Payment cards can list their AIDs in a directory read by the terminal.
• Mobile card emulation. Android apps register the AIDs they answer to.
• Logs and receipts. The AID is often the quickest way to see which application was used.

How to use the list

• The list is sorted by AID in hexadecimal order. Use your browser’s find function (Ctrl+F or Cmd+F) and type the AID without spaces.
• If your AID is longer than any entry, look for the entry that matches its beginning: the first ten hex digits are the RID and identify the organisation.
• Sources links to the published documents where we confirmed each AID; entries confirmed by more than three documents show the first three and a count.
• Notes mark partial AIDs, RID-only entries and values taken from published sample receipts.

Scope and maintenance

This is a reference list maintained by Ambimat, not a complete register: many AIDs, especially domestic payment schemes and private applications, are not published in documents anyone can read freely, and an AID appears here only when we have confirmed it in such a document. Each entry was checked against a public document from the organisation that owns the application, a payment processor or network, a terminal or card vendor, a standards body or a regulator. Payment-scheme AIDs change rarely, but schemes do add variants; if you need an AID for certification or production configuration, confirm it with the scheme or your acquirer. Last verified 6 October 2026.

Application identifier (AID) list

Frequently asked questions

Is an AID the same as a card number?

No. The card number (PAN) identifies the account. The AID identifies the application on the chip, and every card of the same scheme application uses the same AID.

Why are there several AIDs for one card brand?

Schemes use different PIX values for different products and uses: credit and debit, ATM networks, domestic debit routing or regional variants.

My AID is not in the list. What does it mean?

Probably that no freely readable document we could find publishes it. Use the RID (the first ten hex digits) to identify the organisation, and ask the scheme or your acquirer for the rest.

Can I use an AID to build my own card application?

Only under a RID you are entitled to use. New applications should use an AID under their own registered RID rather than borrowing another organisation’s.

Related reading on Ambimat

• Application discovery and selection on chip cards
• Implementing and troubleshooting application selection
• Smart card APDU commands
• Payment and smart-card BER-TLV tag reference

Sources

• ETSI TS 101 220 V19.0.0, §4: AID structure (RID of 5 bytes + PIX of up to 11 bytes): www.etsi.org
• ETSI TS 102 221 V18.4.0, §11.1.1: SELECT by AID, right-truncated AIDs, next occurrence: www.etsi.org
• Visa, Transaction Acceptance Device Guide v3.3 (2025), §2.7.7 chip transaction receipts: usa.visa.com
• U.S. Payments Forum, EMV Receipt Best Practices (2017): www.uspaymentsforum.org
• Adyen, Generate receipts (receipt fields, including the AID): docs.adyen.com
• Fiserv, PINless Guidelines (reading the AID on the receipt to check debit routing): merchants.fiserv.com
• U.S. Payments Forum, EMV Troubleshooting Guide for ATM Owners and Operators (2017), §5: partial AID matching: www.uspaymentsforum.org
• Android Developers, Host-based card emulation overview: developer.android.com
• Per-entry sources (linked in the table): Calypso Networks Association; RIA (Estonia); Visa; Visa; U.S. Payments Forum; Fiserv; Verifone; Elavon; Payment Alliance International; Fiserv; AusPayNet; GoDaddy Poynt; Elavon; ETSI; RIA (Estonia); American Express; MagTek; Oracle; RIA (Estonia); Yubico; gematik; ICAO; NIST; Yubico; GSMA; Debit Network Alliance; FIDO Alliance; NXP; OpenPGP card spec; BSI; European Union