Definition
BOLT12, commonly called "Offers," is a Lightning Network payment protocol that introduces a reusable, static payment code in place of the single-use invoices defined by BOLT11. An offer can be encoded as a QR code or a short string and reused indefinitely, which makes it well suited to donations, tips, subscriptions, and any situation where one fixed code should accept many payments. It is the first new BOLT specification merged into the official Lightning standard since 2017.
How offers improve on BOLT11
A traditional BOLT11 invoice is valid for one payment of one amount and expires, so a merchant must generate a fresh invoice for every transaction. An offer flips this: the payer fetches a fresh invoice on demand by sending an invoice_request to the offer's node, and the node replies with a one-time invoice over the network itself. The payer never needs the recipient to be reachable through a website or server to obtain that invoice.
Privacy and blinded paths
Offers lean on blinded paths, a routing technique that conceals the recipient's node identity from the payer and from intermediate routing nodes. Because the static code does not reveal a node public key directly, the recipient's network position is harder to map. Offers also natively support refunds and recurring-payment workflows. As of 2026 the protocol is supported by Core Lightning, LDK, and Eclair/Phoenix.
Offers build on the same channel and onion-routing machinery as the rest of Lightning. For background, see our glossary entries on Keysend and Trampoline Routing, which describe other ways payments can be delivered across the network.
In Simple Terms
BOLT12, commonly called “Offers,” is a Lightning Network payment protocol that introduces a reusable, static payment code in place of the single-use invoices defined by…