What is a wallet pass?
Updated June 26, 2026
A wallet pass is a digital card (a ticket, loyalty card, coupon, or membership) that lives in Apple Wallet or Google Wallet on a phone. Passmint lets you design, issue, and update these passes from a single API.
Passes update over the air. When you change a pass, every phone that installed it receives the new version automatically.
Why use passes?
- They sit one tap away on the lock screen.
- They support live updates, location, and notifications.
- They work without your app installed.
Common types of pass
Almost anything card-shaped can be a wallet pass:
- Event tickets: concerts, conferences, and matches, with barcodes that scan at the gate.
- Loyalty and membership cards: points balances and tiers that stay current.
- Coupons and offers: time-limited deals that surface on the lock screen near a store.
- Boarding passes: flights and transit, updated live as gates or times change.
Where a pass lives
Once added, a pass sits in the phone's native wallet app, Apple Wallet on iPhone and Google Wallet on Android, alongside the user's payment cards. It stays there until the user removes it, and Passmint can update or expire it at any time.