What EMV tag can i read to determine if a EMV card is a credit card or a debit card?

Question

I tried using application labels but they are not reliable (sometimes they mention visa debit but sometimes they just show VISA).

Answer 1

The international card schemes may have own Proprietary Tags which could point you to card Debit or Credit type.

Say, card AIDs for Maestro, Visa Electron, Visa VPAY, Interac, and many local national card schemes could point you to these cards Debit Product type just due to these products design.

Unfortunately, Visa International Debit/Credit Card AID cannot clearly identify Card Product type.

There was SEPA Cards Standardisation Bulleting to the European EEA cards and EMV Tag 0x9F0A for the definition to the Card Product Identification. Google EPC050-16 for the details.

New cards issued in Europe, due to Interchange Fee Regulation "shall ensure that their payment instruments are electronically identifiable".

If presented, this tag 0x9F0A can define one or several Product Types: Debit, Credit, Commercial, Pre-paid, etc.

In other case the card BIN tables should be used to identify the product type.

Answer 2

Without going to BIN tables, for U.S.-issued major-brand debit cards there are a couple of options. (These are real and are recommended practice for debit recognition by U.S. acquirers, who often use different transaction codes for debit vs. credit.)

• Each of the four American card networks (Amex, Discover, Mastercard, Visa) have their main AID (which can be credit or debit) as well as a (brand-specific) "U.S. Common Debit" AID. Their debit cards that support processing over "U.S. Common Debit" rails will contain the common-debit AID. I'm not a U.S. debit expert, so I'm not sure if these cards will prefer the common-debit AID or the debit/credit AID, but if the common-debit AID is selected, that will tell you it's a debit card.

• Each of the four American card networks will also use a couple of tags with their debit cards (even on the debit/credit AID) that will tell you it's a U.S.-issued debit card:

  • tag 42 (Issuer Identification Number) is present
  • tag 5F55 (Issuer Country Code) is present and has value 0x5553 ("US")

However, if you're looking for a clear guide for non-U.S.-issued cards, I don't have any good guides other than checking for the debit-only AIDs such as Maestro and Interlink.

Oh, also: do not rely on application labels: some issuers put their name in the label (e.g., "DESJARDINS VISA"), so you can't match them in any reliable way.