---
bip: 71
title: "Payment Protocol MIME types"
status: Deployed
type: Specification
layer: "Applications"
authors: ["Gavin Andresen"]
assigned: 2013-07-29
last_modified: 2025-10-08
topics: ["payments","contracts"]
url: https://bipexplorer.com/bip/71
source: https://github.com/bitcoin/bips/blob/master/bip-0071.mediawiki
---

# BIP 71: Payment Protocol MIME types

> **In plain English:** Defines official internet media types (MIME types) for payment protocol messages. These labels let browsers and email programs recognize a Bitcoin payment request and pass it to the right wallet.

## Abstract

This BIP defines a MIME (RFC 2046) Media Type for Bitcoin payment request messages.

## Motivation

Wallet or server software that sends payment protocol messages over email or http should follow Internet standards for properly encapsulating the messages.

## Specification

The Media Type (Content-Type in HTML/email headers) for bitcoin protocol messages shall be:

<table><tbody><tr><td>Message</td><td>Type/Subtype</td></tr><tr><td>PaymentRequest</td><td>application/bitcoin-paymentrequest</td></tr><tr><td>Payment</td><td>application/bitcoin-payment</td></tr><tr><td>PaymentACK</td><td>application/bitcoin-paymentack</td></tr></tbody></table>

Payment protocol messages are encoded in binary.

## Example

A web server generating a PaymentRequest message to initiate the payment protocol would precede the binary message data with the following headers:

```
Content-Type: application/bitcoin-paymentrequest
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary
```