In order to facilitate the development of applications and middleware that support the Personal Identity Verification (PIV) Card, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has developed a set of test PIV Cards. The set of test PIV Cards contains sixteen smart cards that are loaded with a PIV Card Application, as specified in NIST Special Publication 800-73-4. The PIV Card Applications on the smart cards are loaded with test data and keys that are similar to what might appear on actual PIV Cards, with the exception that the certificates on the test PIV Cards were issued from a test public key infrastructure. Version 2 of the test PIV Cards includes examples of new, optional features that were introduced in SP 800-73-4, such as on-card biometric comparison, secure messaging, and the virtual contact interface.

Information about the test cards is available on the PIV Test Cards website. The test cards are available for purchase as NIST Special Database 33.