Bots and Mini Apps (collectively, “Third Party Apps” or “TPA”) are third party applications that integrate into Telegram and its interfaces, allowing developers to offer tools, products and services through the Telegram ecosystem, which users may access using Telegram clients.
Developers can operate their TPA by interfacing with the Bot API (“Bot API”) made available by Telegram for this purpose. The Bot API, along with Bot and Mini App in-app native interfaces and integrations, and all other associated tools, documentation, frameworks and services made available by Telegram collectively comprise the Telegram Bot Platform (“Bot Platform”).
These Terms of Service for Bot Platform Developers (“Bot Developer Terms” or “these terms”) govern your usage of the Telegram Bot Platform for the purposes of developing services that integrate it or function in connection with it, and constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Telegram Messenger Inc. (“Telegram”). For the purposes of these Terms, ‘we’, ‘us’ and ‘our’ refers to Telegram, and ‘you’ refers to you, the developer of TPA.
By connecting your services to Telegram via Bot Platform, you agree that you have read in full, understood and accepted to be legally bound by the terms contained herein, in addition to the Telegram Terms of Service and Telegram Privacy Policy. All of the aforementioned terms may be amended from time to time at our sole discretion.
For clarity, your continued access to and use of Bot Platform, including the continued operation of any TPA owned by you, shall constitute your acceptance of these Bot Developer Terms and all other terms that are incorporated herein, including any updates or modifications to them from time to time.
Developers can make their products and services accessible in Telegram apps by building TPA and connecting them to the Telegram platform via Bot API. TPA are hosted on their developers’ own servers, and are third-party services that Telegram allows to have a presence in Telegram apps, provided they comply with the Terms of Service for Telegram, these terms, and any other applicable agreements. Telegram has no affiliation with or connection to any TPA or TPA developers, unless otherwise stated.
Accordingly, you understand and acknowledge that all TPA are operated by third parties, unless otherwise stated by Telegram as the case may be. Some TPA may have a verified status in Telegram apps. This status is assigned at Telegram’s sole discretion and serves solely to help distinguish authentic and official bots from other similar bots or imitators; the status does not represent any form of endorsement of the TPA, its owner or the content it uploads.
You understand and agree that your association with us is exclusively as a user of our services, functioning as an independent entity. These terms and your engagement with Bot Platform do not establish any form of agency, partnership, employment or joint venture between you and Telegram. You are expressly forbidden from representing yourself as anything other than an independent third-party as it pertains to your engagement with Bot Platform and, by extension, with Telegram.
Bot Platform, some of its features, as well as individual TPA may not be available to certain users (both as users of TPA services and as developers), on certain Telegram clients or within certain geographical regions, in accordance with current demand, technological limitations, economic considerations, regulatory restrictions and other factors.
Consequently, you acknowledge and agree that the availability of Bot Platform, and, by extension, access to the creation, operation and usage of TPA or some of their features for both you and your TPA users may change at any time, and we are not obligated to provide advance notice, compensation or explanations for any such changes.
Telegram only stores the data it needs to function as a secure and feature-rich messaging service, and your TPA are expected and required to do the same. Furthermore, without limiting the stipulations set out in Section 8, you hereby agree to adhere strictly to all privacy laws and regulations that are applicable for you and for the users of your TPA. In any case, all data you obtain through or in connection with Bot Platform must be stored and handled strictly in compliance with the stipulations articulated in the Telegram Terms of Service, the Telegram Privacy Policy, applicable legal and regulatory frameworks, and these terms.
If you choose to mandate that your users agree to an additional Privacy Policy before accessing your TPA, then said Privacy Policy cannot conflict, amend or exhibit any discrepancies with the stipulations of the aforementioned Terms. Should any inconsistency arise, these Terms and the Telegram Privacy Policy will prevail.
The data your TPA may receive as part of their standard operation within Telegram is listed in our Privacy Policy, see 6.3. What Data Bots Receive.
You may request additional data from your users at your and their discretion, as agreed between you and them. However, you are strictly prohibited from attempting to deceive or mislead users with the purpose of evading or partially circumventing the limitations and protections that Telegram has established concerning the data you may access.
Without limiting Sections 4 and 9, and except as expressly required by applicable law, Telegram imposes certain obligations regarding the degree to which you may continue to retain user data over time. You acknowledge and agree that failing to comply with any such obligation may lead to the immediate termination of your account, your TPA, or both. Namely, insofar as you are allowed to do so under applicable law, you must, without undue delay:
(a) Delete user data upon their (or our, as the case may be) request that you do so;
(b) Delete user data when retention thereof becomes unnecessary to operate your TPA or to fulfill any other obligation as the case may be and as expressly agreed between you and your users;
(c) Delete all user data obtained through or in connection with Bot Platform upon the cessation of your TPA's operations therein, except for data that users have expressly agreed can be retained, which may be kept until such agreement remains in effect;
(d) Delete all user data obtained through or in connection with Bot Platform in response to a lawful request from an authorized legal entity;
You agree not to use your TPA to collect, store, aggregate or process data beyond what is essential for the operation of your services. Always prohibited uses include any form of data collection aimed at creating large datasets, machine learning models and AI products, such as scraping public group or channel contents.
Without limiting the foregoing, you are free to use data submitted directly and voluntarily to your TPA by users, provided that you clearly inform them of the data's intended use and they give their individual, explicit, active and revocable consent.
You understand and agree that it is your responsibility to employ all reasonable efforts to protect any data you receive from or in connection with Bot Platform, and to engage with it securely, having read and understood the associated official documentation.
At a minimum, you must:
Without limiting the foregoing, you understand and agree that Telegram employs every effort to mitigate all security risks for its users, but will not be liable for any damages, losses or privacy breaches they may incur as a result of your negligence or inability to follow best security practices, including but not limited to the non-exhaustive list of requirements set out above.
To access Bot Platform and other Telegram APIs or tools, Telegram may provide some confidential credentials to you, such as an API ID, hash, secure tokens, and other necessary credentials as the case may be. These credentials are intended solely for the operation of the products and services you offer through Telegram APIs, and, without limiting the foregoing, you are explicitly prohibited from making them available to the public. You understand and agree that any actions taken by others who authenticate using your credentials will be deemed as taken by you, regardless of how they gained possession of the credentials.
The following details the fundamental operating requirements of TPA on the Telegram platform. In addition to the stipulations below, you also agree to use Bot Platform in good faith, for the benefit of its users and to enrich the overall Telegram ecosystem. Failing to do so may result in restrictions on or termination of your participation in Bot Platform, as well as of your accounts in Telegram apps.
Additional local laws and regulations may apply to your TPA. It is your responsibility to ensure that your TPA complies with all applicable legislation therein, and Telegram will not be liable for any violations or actions on behalf of your TPA.
The content hosted on your TPA must comply with the Telegram Terms of Service. You are responsible for any content uploaded by your TPA, including the moderation of user-generated content that is accessible via your TPA, and agree that Telegram may also intervene to moderate content hosted by your TPA, but is not obligated to do so.
You understand and agree that your TPA must operate fully within the bounds of the rules set out below at all times. Should Telegram in its sole discretion determine that your TPA did not operate well within these guidelines at any point in time, it may terminate your TPA, your account, or both. Furthermore, violators may face legal consequences pursuant to relevant laws and regulations they undermined. In particular:
Without limiting the foregoing, you understand and agree that your TPA must behave in a reasonably predictable manner at all times. That is, it cannot use its privileges (moderation permissions, private chat management via Telegram Business, etc.) to carry out actions that diverge from the purposes under which the privileges were originally obtained. For clarity, this means that users must always be informed of any significant changes pertaining to the operational scope of your TPA, and should be given an option to opt out of these changes.
The interface of your TPA should ideally be complementary to that of Telegram apps, and Bot Platform provides several components that facilitate this. In any case, your TPA must always ensure that interface elements are functional (e.g., flyouts and pop-up windows can be closed, etc.) and do not intrude or obstruct the user’s ability to perform actions within Telegram apps. Similarly, you are prohibited from altering or misrepresenting any component or dialog of your TPA interface to falsely appear as notifications or alerts originating from Telegram, the user’s operating system or browser, or any third parties who have not granted you authorization to represent them.
Telegram Business subscribers may choose to connect a Telegram Bot to their account at their discretion, to streamline the process of managing and possibly replying to incoming messages in a subset of private chats of their choosing.
If your TPA supports being designated as a Chatbot under Telegram Business, without limiting the Terms set out in this agreement, you additionally agree to:
Without limiting the foregoing, you understand and agree that violating any of the aforementioned obligations may lead to the immediate and permanent ban of your TPA and your account from the Telegram platform, as well as legal action taken against you, your associates, and those acting on your behalf as the case may be.
Telegram does not process payments. Instead, Bot Platform provides a set of APIs that allow developers to interface solely and directly with third-party payment providers for the purposes of receiving payments. For clarity, neither Telegram nor Bot Platform oversee, verify, guarantee, or process payments and financial transactions between you and users of your TPA. Additionally, we neither hold nor have custody of TPA users' funds at any point before, during and after transactions between you and them, and we do not act as a financial intermediary in any capacity. You may choose a payment provider at your discretion and according to their availability in your regions of interest, from the list of available payment providers.
Telegram does not store credit card details for purchases made via TPA. Such data is handled solely by third-party payment providers. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
Payments conducted or initiated through TPA are processed by a third-party payment provider, as agreed between you and the payment provider.
Telegram does not handle, manage, oversee, verify or provide any sort of warranty over such transactions. Consequently, you understand and agree that any disputes, claims, losses, misunderstandings, technical errors, or issues of any kind (both accidental and allegedly intentional) related to payments or transactions must be resolved between yourself, the purchaser and the respective payment provider, when applicable. Telegram bears no responsibility whatsoever and will not be a party to any payment-related disputes or discussions, nor is it liable for any losses or damages the parties involved may incur.
By using or offering your TPA as a means of storing, handling or processing financial assets (including cryptocurrency), you accept that it is your responsibility to ensure that any assets, credentials or other information is stored securely. You understand that Telegram may delete or make inaccessible whole chats, messages, media and files sent to and from your TPA at any time. In general, Telegram makes no guarantee that any data it stores in connection with your TPA, including but not limited to key-value pairs in the Telegram Cloud Storage for Bots and Mini Apps, will remain available, uncorrupted or fit for any particular purpose.
Therefore, you are expected to design your application and its persistence paradigms in a manner that effectively nullifies the impact of partially or fully losing any data that is typically provided by Bot Platform. Similarly, you should not assume that the availability of any such data from Telegram will be perpetual or for a specific duration, even if otherwise stated in the relevant documentation or source code. Accordingly, you expressly understand and agree that losses incurred by either you or your TPA users in connection with or as a result of your failure to properly secure relevant data or credentials will be solely your responsibility, and Telegram will neither be liable nor compensate you, your associates, those acting on your behalf or your TPA users for this loss.
The list of available payment providers may change at our discretion at any time without notice, either to add or remove providers from further participation in Bot Platform.
Third-party payment providers may have additional terms and stipulations regarding their use in connection with your TPA, as agreed between you and them. Should Telegram no longer support a provider, or should the provider itself cease operations, it is your responsibility to settle any resulting disputes, unclaimed funds, potential losses or other adverse consequences as the case may be, in accordance with the provider’s terms.
For clarity, it is solely your responsibility to fully understand and comply with the terms, conditions, and policies set forth by any third-party payment provider you choose to use in conjunction with your TPA, and any issues or disputes arising thereunder are to be resolved solely between you and them.
You are solely responsible for all taxes and fees associated with any income you receive via any services, products, content, or utilities created by you through or in connection with Bot Platform, if applicable and in accordance with local laws. Telegram will not inform you of, nor calculate or pay out any taxes and fees on your behalf. For clarity, this applies both to payments initiated through the Telegram Payment API for TPA, and any other payment framework or processor you may choose to use.
Consequently, you explicitly acknowledge and agree that Telegram will not be liable for any fees, expenses, penalties, or additional costs you may incur as a result of your participation in Bot Platform, including but not limited to those arising from your failure to properly comply with applicable local laws and tax regulations.
You retain ownership over the code of your TPA, the services it offers and the content it uploads (if applicable). Telegram retains ownership over the code and functionality of the Telegram apps, its code, trademarks, servers, architecture, protocols and APIs.
Telegram will not be subject to, and you agree to exempt it from, the Terms of your TPA or any other services, products, content, or utilities created by you through or in connection with Bot Platform.
Your TPA and any other service or product you choose to offer on Telegram must have their own branding and separate affiliation. Under no circumstances are you allowed to incorporate (either expressly or implicitly) the intellectual property of Telegram, including but not limited to its trademarks, known service names, trade names, logos, or any graphical representations associated with Telegram, into the branding, name, description, advertising, or identity of your TPA.
Should we determine in our sole discretion that your services might be misunderstood as being affiliated with or operated by Telegram, you understand and agree that we have the right (but not the obligation) to request that you immediately alter your branding to mitigate this, and to take any other action we deem necessary, including but not limited to terminating your TPA, your Telegram account, and your access to Bot Platform.
By accessing and utilizing Bot Platform, you consent to grant us a non-exclusive, perpetual, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, and worldwide license to utilize (not reproduce) your TPA for the betterment of the Telegram ecosystem. This encompasses the running, public displaying, advertising, distribution, hosting, enhancement, translation, and utilization of your TPA in manners that facilitate the functionality, publicity, popularity, advancement, and improvement of our platform, APIs, services and products. For clarity and without limiting the foregoing, this provision allows us to, among other things, market and advertise your TPA to users or to other third parties by displaying its name and functionality, make your TPA available through the global Telegram search or other app interfaces and facilitate user engagement with the services you offer.
Should either Bot Platform or your TPA be discontinued, this license will remain in effect.
To facilitate the integration of your TPA with Bot Platform, Telegram may at times in its sole discretion make available software repositories or tools released under different licenses, some of which may be open source. In the event of any inconsistency or conflict between such licenses and these Terms, the provisions of the relevant open source license shall supersede these Terms to the extent strictly necessary for conflict resolution and solely within the scope of the software they pertain to.
It is your responsibility to ensure that any TPA, services, products, content, or utilities created by you through or in connection with Bot Platform operate within all applicable laws and regulations, and Telegram explicitly mandates that you do so, but will not be liable if you fail to. Consequently, you understand and agree that the services you offer, including their names, logos, descriptions, branding, uploaded media, communications, functionalities and any other relevant content cannot infringe or violate third party rights, nor can they enable any user to do so.
For clarity, you expressly agree to hold Telegram harmless and indemnify it against any claims, damages, costs, fees and legal actions resulting from or arising in connection with your misuse of our services. This includes but is not limited to instances where you, your associates, those acting on your behalf or the services you offer violate these Terms, the Telegram Terms of Service, applicable laws or any other relevant regulation.
In addition to and without limiting 4., you will comply with all applicable privacy laws and regulations, such as the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). It is your responsibility to determine whether or not such laws apply to your TPA, and if applicable, how to meet their requirements, and Telegram will not be liable if you fail to do so.
Failure to comply with these Terms or the Telegram Terms of Service may result in a temporary or a permanent ban from Bot Platform or Telegram apps. In such instances, your TPA will be removed from Bot Platform and become partially or fully inaccessible to some or all users. Should we have reason to do so, at our sole discretion, the Telegram account tied to your TPA may also be banned from the Telegram platform. You will not be compensated for any direct or indirect losses resulting from your termination.
Telegram can decide to fully or partially discontinue TPA or Bot Platform at any time, including in response to unforeseen circumstances beyond our control. This includes but is not limited to discontinuation in specific regions, for certain users, or removing a subset of services and features. For clarity, we make no guarantee of ongoing or continued support for this program.
If any part of these Bot Developer Terms is found to be void, invalid, or unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent allowed under applicable law, and will not impact the rest of the terms herein.
The following paragraphs will continue to apply and survive the termination of Bot Platform and, by extension, of these Bot Developer Terms: 2.1., 4.2., 4.4., 5, 5.1., 5.2., 6.2., 6.3., 6.5., 7., 7.2., 8., 8.1., 11. and 11.2..
Should any controversy arise between these Bot Developer Terms, and any other terms or provisions governing the services you offer through or in connection with Bot Platform as the case may be, it shall be resolved in the manner that is most favorable to Telegram, to the full extent permitted under applicable law.
At your discretion, you may choose to mandate that users of the services you provide in connection with Bot Platform accept an additional agreement that further regulates their use of your TPA. In such cases, you expressly acknowledge and agree that any such agreement exists solely between you and the user, and we bear no responsibility or liability thereunder. Furthermore, such additional agreements cannot override, alter, supersede or otherwise conflict with the Terms outlined herein; in the event of any discrepancy or conflict, without foregoing 10., these Terms shall prevail.
You acknowledge and agree that Telegram and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, contractors and employees shall bear no liability for any unrealized payments, lost profits, lost or misplaced funds and assets (including cryptocurrency), lost or misplaced data, fines, fees, punitive or reputational damages or any other unwanted consequence that may arise from or in connection with your use of and engagement with Bot Platform.
Without limiting Sections 5.1. and 11., you understand and agree that Telegram will not be liable for the manner in which its users interact and engage with the services you offer through or in connection with Bot Platform, and, by extension, through the Telegram platform. This includes, but is not limited to, users' actions, conduct, content uploaded or removed, instances of spam, unintentional or unsolicited use of your services, or any other actions you deem undesirable or harmful. Furthermore, you expressly and permanently absolve Telegram from any obligation, either express or implied, to monitor, control, or rectify such user interactions to the maximum extent under applicable law.
You accept and agree to grant Telegram and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, contractors and employees absolute indemnity and to hold them harmless from and against any and all claims, actions, proceedings, obligations, investigations, demands, suits, expenses, costs and damages (including but not limited to legal fees, fines or penalties imposed by any authorities, private entities or regulatory institutions) arising from, related to, or in any way incurred as a result of your use of, conduct in connection with, your engagement with, receipt of and access to Bot Platform. For clarity, this indemnity clause complements the rights, privileges and protections already provided to us under the Telegram Terms of Service (if applicable).
Bot Platform is provided "as is” and “as available”, and, to the extent permitted by applicable law, we make no guarantees that Bot Platform always will be error-free, or that it will function without delays and disruptions at all times. We disclaim all warranties, whether express or implied, including but not limited to the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement.
Accordingly, you acknowledge and agree that Telegram and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, contractors and employees explicitly waive all guarantees or warranties concerning Bot Platform, the data accessed through it, the interfaces and clients it integrates with, the relevant documentation, or any other relevant services and functionalities offered.
For clarity, this means Telegram makes no commitment, either express or implied, about Bot Platform’s present or future functionality, profitability, dependability, uptime, precision, quality, appropriateness, legality, efficiency, origin, safety, accessibility, availability, practicality, value or their ability to meet any particular needs or standards.
We may, at our sole and absolute discretion and without liability, at any time and without notice, modify Bot Platform in any way we deem necessary. We hold no liability for how these changes may affect access to and services provided through Bot Platform. You are solely responsible for ensuring that your TPA is available to your users and compatible with Bot Platform. In no event shall we be liable for any direct or indirect damages to you or your affiliates, employees, partners and joint venturers arising out of or in connection with any changes made to Bot Platform, including its discontinuation, even if you or others have advised us of the possibility of such damages.
These changes include but are not limited to:
We will review and may update these Bot Developer Terms from time to time. Any changes to these Bot Developer Terms will become effective when we post the revised Bot Developer Terms of Service on this page https://telegram.org/tos/bot-developers. Please check our website frequently to see any updates or changes to our Terms, an optional summary of which we may set out below.