What it is
Application Usage Control (AUC) is a 2-byte issuer bitmap restricting where and how the card may be used: domestic vs international, cash vs goods vs services, ATM vs other terminals, and whether cashback is allowed. The terminal compares the card country (5F28) with the terminal country (9F1A) to apply the domestic/international rules.
Where it appears
Read from the card record files; checked during terminal action analysis.
Specification reference
Defined in: EMV 4.x Book 3 (Application Specification), Annex A — Data Element Dictionary
Bit-level definitions below follow: EMV Book 3, Table 17 — Application Usage Control (2 bytes)
Bit & value breakdown
EMV Book 3, Table 17 — Application Usage Control (2 bytes)
Byte 1
b8 = 0x80Valid for domestic cash transactionsb7 = 0x40Valid for international cash transactionsb6 = 0x20Valid for domestic goodsb5 = 0x10Valid for international goodsb4 = 0x08Valid for domestic servicesb3 = 0x04Valid for international servicesb1 = 0x01Valid at terminals other than ATMsByte 2
b8 = 0x80Domestic cashback allowedb7 = 0x40International cashback allowedb6–b1RFUReserved for Future UseBits or bytes with no current meaning, reserved by the spec; they must be set to zero. — must be 0Example values
FF00Valid for all domestic and international goods/services/cash
FF80As above, plus domestic cashback allowed