After a gap of nearly five years, Apple has restored credit and debit card payments on the App Store in India. The company made the move after completing compliance with the Reserve Bank of India's card tokenisation rules, and the change should make buying apps and paying for subscriptions noticeably easier for iPhone and iPad users.
Which cards work right now
For now, Apple has enabled support for Visa and Mastercard credit and debit cards. There is an important catch though, these cards cannot be used to pay directly on the App Store. Users first need to add money to their Apple Account Wallet, and only that wallet balance can then be used to buy apps or pay for subscriptions such as iCloud+. In other words, the card works as a way to top up the wallet rather than as a direct payment method at checkout.
When will everyone get it
Apple is not switching this on for every account at once, it is rolling the feature out in phases, and it should reach all Apple accounts over the coming days. The existing option of adding money to an Apple Account through UPI continues to work exactly as before, so users effectively have two ways to top up their wallet. Support for RuPay cards could also be added in the coming weeks, which would widen the feature to a much larger base of Indian cardholders.
Why card payments disappeared five years ago
The backstory here is the RBI's card tokenisation rule, introduced a few years ago to make online payments safer. Under this rule, no company is allowed to store a customer's actual card number and expiry date on its own servers. A secure digital token is generated instead, and every future payment runs through that token rather than the raw card details. Apple was not compliant with this requirement in India, so it simply switched off card payments on the App Store until it could build tokenisation support into its systems. Five years later, that work is done, which is why card payments are back.
This is not Apple Pay launching in India
Apple has clarified that the return of card support does not mean Apple Pay is now available in India. Apple Pay is the company's contactless payment service, the one used to tap a phone at a store checkout, and it remains unavailable in India. This update is limited strictly to App Store purchases and subscription payments.
How to add a card and how payments will run
To add a card to an Apple Account, users will need to complete OTP verification. Once a card is saved, it can be removed at any time. Recurring subscriptions like iCloud+ will operate under the RBI's e-mandate framework, meaning the first payment needs explicit OTP approval, while subsequent payments within the pre-approved limit go through automatically after the bank sends a notification, without requiring fresh approval each time.
