---
title: "HTTP 402 Payment Required: definition | Agent Ready Crawlers"
description: "HTTP 402 Payment Required: An HTTP status code reserved since the 1990s and now used by pay-per-crawl and x402 to tell a client that access needs payment."
canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/http-402
site: "Agent Ready Crawlers"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
section: "Glossary"
---

# HTTP 402 Payment Required: definition | Agent Ready Crawlers

> HTTP 402 Payment Required: An HTTP status code reserved since the 1990s and now used by pay-per-crawl and x402 to tell a client that access needs payment.

Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/http-402
Site: Agent Ready Crawlers
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

Glossary

# HTTP 402 Payment Required

In short

An HTTP status code reserved since the 1990s and now used by pay-per-crawl and x402 to tell a client that access needs payment. RFC 2068 (January 1997) defined the code and RFC 9110 still lists it as reserved for future use. 28 of 10,565 home pages in the crawl answered 402 to its user agent.

## Definition

An HTTP status code reserved since the 1990s and now used by pay-per-crawl and x402 to tell a client that access needs payment.

## Sourced example

AWS WAF returns a machine-readable 402 under x402 with prices, accepted payment methods and license terms. [Source](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/06/aws-waf-ai-traffic-monetization), read 2026-11-04.

## How it shows up here

RFC 2068 (January 1997) defined the code and RFC 9110 still lists it as reserved for future use. 28 of 10,565 home pages in the crawl answered 402 to its user agent.

-   [What pay per crawl pays](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/guides/what-pay-per-crawl-pays/)
-   [AWS WAF Bot Control profile](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/aws-waf-bot-control/)

Previous: [Google-Extended](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/google-extended/). Next: [HTTP Message Signatures](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/http-message-signatures/). [All 41 terms](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/glossary/).

## Sources

-   [aws.amazon.com: aws waf ai traffic monetization](https://aws.amazon.com/about-aws/whats-new/2026/06/aws-waf-ai-traffic-monetization) read 2026-11-04
-   [RFC 2068, section 10.4.3: 402 Payment Required](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2068.txt) read 2026-11-05
-   [RFC 9110, section 15.5.3: 402 Payment Required](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9110.html) read 2026-11-05

Last reviewed 2026-11-04