Use receipts to verify product purchases

Article
01/04/2023

Each Microsoft Store transaction that results in a successful product purchase can optionally return a transaction receipt. This receipt provides information about the listed product and monetary cost to the customer.

Having access to this information supports scenarios where your app needs to verify that a user purchased your app, or has made add-on (also called in-app product or IAP) purchases from the Microsoft Store. For example, imagine a game that offers downloaded content. If the user who purchased the game content wants to play it on a different device, you need to verify that the user already owns the content. Here's how.

Important

This article shows how to use members of the Windows.ApplicationModel.Store namespace to get and validate a receipt for an in-app purchase. If you are using the Windows.Services.Store namespace for in-app purchases (introduced in Windows 10, version 1607, and available to projects that target Windows 10 Anniversary Edition (10.0; Build 14393) or a later release in Visual Studio), this namespace does not provide an API for getting purchase receipts for in-app purchases. However, you can use a REST method in the Microsoft Store collection API to get data for a purchase transaction. For more information, see Receipts for in-app purchases.

Requesting a receipt

The Windows.ApplicationModel.Store namespace supports several ways to get a receipt:

When you make a purchase by using CurrentApp.RequestAppPurchaseAsync or CurrentApp.RequestProductPurchaseAsync (or one of the other overloads of this method), the return value contains the receipt.
You can call the CurrentApp.GetAppReceiptAsync method to retrieve the current receipt info for your app and any add-ons in your app.

An app receipt looks something like this.

Note

This example is formatted to help make the XML readable. Real app receipts do not include whitespace between elements.

<Receipt Version="1.0" ReceiptDate="2012-08-30T23:10:05Z" CertificateId="b809e47cd0110a4db043b3f73e83acd917fe1336" ReceiptDeviceId="4e362949-acc3-fe3a-e71b-89893eb4f528">
    <AppReceipt Id="8ffa256d-eca8-712a-7cf8-cbf5522df24b" AppId="55428GreenlakeApps.CurrentAppSimulatorEventTest_z7q3q7z11crfr" PurchaseDate="2012-06-04T23:07:24Z" LicenseType="Full" />
    <ProductReceipt Id="6bbf4366-6fb2-8be8-7947-92fd5f683530" ProductId="Product1" PurchaseDate="2012-08-30T23:08:52Z" ExpirationDate="2012-09-02T23:08:49Z" ProductType="Durable" AppId="55428GreenlakeApps.CurrentAppSimulatorEventTest_z7q3q7z11crfr" />
    <Signature xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
        <SignedInfo>
            <CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
            <SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256" />
            <Reference URI="">
                <Transforms>
                    <Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
                </Transforms>
                <DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256" />
                <DigestValue>cdiU06eD8X/w1aGCHeaGCG9w/kWZ8I099rw4mmPpvdU=</DigestValue>
            </Reference>
        </SignedInfo>
        <SignatureValue>SjRIxS/2r2P6ZdgaR9bwUSa6ZItYYFpKLJZrnAa3zkMylbiWjh9oZGGng2p6/gtBHC2dSTZlLbqnysJjl7mQp/A3wKaIkzjyRXv3kxoVaSV0pkqiPt04cIfFTP0JZkE5QD/vYxiWjeyGp1dThEM2RV811sRWvmEs/hHhVxb32e8xCLtpALYx3a9lW51zRJJN0eNdPAvNoiCJlnogAoTToUQLHs72I1dECnSbeNPXiG7klpy5boKKMCZfnVXXkneWvVFtAA1h2sB7ll40LEHO4oYN6VzD+uKd76QOgGmsu9iGVyRvvmMtahvtL1/pxoxsTRedhKq6zrzCfT8qfh3C1w==</SignatureValue>
    </Signature>
</Receipt>

A product receipt looks like this.

Note

This example is formatted to help make the XML readable. Real product receipts do not include whitespace between elements.

<Receipt Version="1.0" ReceiptDate="2012-08-30T23:08:52Z" CertificateId="b809e47cd0110a4db043b3f73e83acd917fe1336" ReceiptDeviceId="4e362949-acc3-fe3a-e71b-89893eb4f528">
    <ProductReceipt Id="6bbf4366-6fb2-8be8-7947-92fd5f683530" ProductId="Product1" PurchaseDate="2012-08-30T23:08:52Z" ExpirationDate="2012-09-02T23:08:49Z" ProductType="Durable" AppId="55428GreenlakeApps.CurrentAppSimulatorEventTest_z7q3q7z11crfr" />
    <Signature xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#">
        <SignedInfo>
            <CanonicalizationMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/10/xml-exc-c14n#" />
            <SignatureMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256" />
            <Reference URI="">
                <Transforms>
                    <Transform Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2000/09/xmldsig#enveloped-signature" />
                </Transforms>
                <DigestMethod Algorithm="http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmlenc#sha256" />
                <DigestValue>Uvi8jkTYd3HtpMmAMpOm94fLeqmcQ2KCrV1XmSuY1xI=</DigestValue>
            </Reference>
        </SignedInfo>
        <SignatureValue>TT5fDET1X9nBk9/yKEJAjVASKjall3gw8u9N5Uizx4/Le9RtJtv+E9XSMjrOXK/TDicidIPLBjTbcZylYZdGPkMvAIc3/1mdLMZYJc+EXG9IsE9L74LmJ0OqGH5WjGK/UexAXxVBWDtBbDI2JLOaBevYsyy+4hLOcTXDSUA4tXwPa2Bi+BRoUTdYE2mFW7ytOJNEs3jTiHrCK6JRvTyU9lGkNDMNx9loIr+mRks+BSf70KxPtE9XCpCvXyWa/Q1JaIyZI7llCH45Dn4SKFn6L/JBw8G8xSTrZ3sBYBKOnUDbSCfc8ucQX97EyivSPURvTyImmjpsXDm2LBaEgAMADg==</SignatureValue>
    </Signature>
</Receipt>

You can use either of these receipt examples to test your validation code. For more information about the contents of the receipt, see the element and attribute descriptions.

Validating a receipt

To validate a receipt's authenticity, you need your back-end system (a web service or something similar) to check the receipt's signature using the public certificate. To get this certificate, use the URL https://lic.apps.microsoft.com/licensing/certificateserver/?cid=CertificateId%60%60%60, where CertificateId is the CertificateId value in the receipt.

Here's an example of that validation process. This code runs in a .NET Framework console application that includes a reference to the System.Security assembly.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Security.Cryptography;
using System.Security.Cryptography.X509Certificates;
using System.Xml;
using System.IO;
using System.Security.Cryptography.Xml;
using System.Net;

namespace ReceiptVerificationSample
{
    public sealed class RSAPKCS1SHA256SignatureDescription : SignatureDescription
    {
        public RSAPKCS1SHA256SignatureDescription()
        {
            base.KeyAlgorithm = typeof(RSACryptoServiceProvider).FullName;
            base.DigestAlgorithm = typeof(SHA256Managed).FullName;
            base.FormatterAlgorithm = typeof(RSAPKCS1SignatureFormatter).FullName;
            base.DeformatterAlgorithm = typeof(RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter).FullName;
        }

        public override AsymmetricSignatureDeformatter CreateDeformatter(AsymmetricAlgorithm key)
        {
            if (key == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("key");
            }

            RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter deformatter = new RSAPKCS1SignatureDeformatter(key);
            deformatter.SetHashAlgorithm("SHA256");
            return deformatter;
        }

        public override AsymmetricSignatureFormatter CreateFormatter(AsymmetricAlgorithm key)
        {
            if (key == null)
            {
                throw new ArgumentNullException("key");
            }

            RSAPKCS1SignatureFormatter formatter = new RSAPKCS1SignatureFormatter(key);
            formatter.SetHashAlgorithm("SHA256");
            return formatter;
        }
    }

    class Program
    {
        // Utility function to read the bytes from an HTTP response
        private static int ReadResponseBytes(byte[] responseBuffer, Stream resStream)
        {
            int count = 0;
            int numBytesRead = 0;
            int numBytesToRead = responseBuffer.Length;

            do
            {
                count = resStream.Read(responseBuffer, numBytesRead, numBytesToRead);
                numBytesRead += count;
                numBytesToRead -= count;
            } while (count > 0);

            return numBytesRead;
        }

        public static X509Certificate2 RetrieveCertificate(string certificateId)
        {
            const int MaxCertificateSize = 10000;

            // Retrieve the certificate URL.
            String certificateUrl = String.Format(
                "https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=246509&cid={0}", certificateId);

            // Make an HTTP GET request for the certificate
            HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)HttpWebRequest.Create(certificateUrl);
            request.Method = "GET";

            HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();

            // Retrieve the certificate out of the response stream
            byte[] responseBuffer = new byte[MaxCertificateSize];
            Stream resStream = response.GetResponseStream();
            int bytesRead = ReadResponseBytes(responseBuffer, resStream);

            if (bytesRead < 1)
            {
                //TODO: Handle error here
            }

            return new X509Certificate2(responseBuffer);
        }

        static bool ValidateXml(XmlDocument receipt, X509Certificate2 certificate)
        {
            // Create the signed XML object.
            SignedXml sxml = new SignedXml(receipt);

            // Get the XML Signature node and load it into the signed XML object.
            XmlNode dsig = receipt.GetElementsByTagName("Signature", SignedXml.XmlDsigNamespaceUrl)[0];
            if (dsig == null)
            {
                // If signature is not found return false
                System.Console.WriteLine("Signature not found.");
                return false;
            }

            sxml.LoadXml((XmlElement)dsig);

            // Check the signature
            bool isValid = sxml.CheckSignature(certificate, true);

            return isValid;
        }

        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            // .NET does not support SHA256-RSA2048 signature verification by default, 
            // so register this algorithm for verification.
            CryptoConfig.AddAlgorithm(typeof(RSAPKCS1SHA256SignatureDescription), 
                "http://www.w3.org/2001/04/xmldsig-more#rsa-sha256");

            // Load the receipt that needs to be verified as an XML document
            XmlDocument xmlDoc = new XmlDocument();
            xmlDoc.Load("..\\..\\receipt.xml");

            // The certificateId attribute is present in the document root, retrieve it
            XmlNode node = xmlDoc.DocumentElement;
            string certificateId = node.Attributes["CertificateId"].Value;

            // Retrieve the certificate from the official site.
            // NOTE: For sake of performance, you would want to cache this certificate locally.
            //       Otherwise, every single call will incur the delay of certificate retrieval.
            X509Certificate2 verificationCertificate = RetrieveCertificate(certificateId);

            try
            {
                // Validate the receipt with the certificate retrieved earlier
                bool isValid = ValidateXml(xmlDoc, verificationCertificate);
                System.Console.WriteLine("Certificate valid: " + isValid);
            }
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                System.Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString());
            }
        }
    }
}

Element and attribute descriptions for a receipt

This section describes the elements and attributes in a receipt.

Receipt element

The root element of this file is the Receipt element, which contains information about app and in-app purchases. This element contains the following child elements.

Element	Required	Quantity	Description
AppReceipt	No	0 or 1	Contains purchase information for the current app.
ProductReceipt	No	0 or more	Contains information about an in-app purchase for the current app.
Signature	Yes	1	This element is a standard XML-DSIG construct. It contains a SignatureValue element, which contains the signature you can use to validate the receipt, and a SignedInfo element.

Receipt has the following attributes.

Attribute	Description
Version	The version number of the receipt.
CertificateId	The certificate thumbprint used to sign the receipt.
ReceiptDate	Date the receipt was signed and downloaded.
ReceiptDeviceId	Identifies the device used to request this receipt.

AppReceipt element

This element contains purchase information for the current app.

AppReceipt has the following attributes.

Attribute	Description
Id	Identifies the purchase.
AppId	The Package Family Name value that the OS uses for the app.
LicenseType	Full, if the user purchased the full version of the app. Trial, if the user downloaded a trial version of the app.
PurchaseDate	Date when the app was acquired.

ProductReceipt element

This element contains information about an in-app purchase for the current app.

ProductReceipt has the following attributes.

Attribute	Description
Id	Identifies the purchase.
AppId	Identifies the app through which the user made the purchase.
ProductId	Identifies the product purchased.
ProductType	Determines the product type. Currently only supports a value of Durable.
PurchaseDate	Date when the purchase occurred.

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