May an OAuth 2.0 access token be a JWT?

A1: Using a JWT as an access token is certainly permissible by spec exactly because the spec does not restrict its format.

A2: The idea behind using a JWT as an access token is that it can then be self-contained so that the target can verify the access token and use the associated content without having to go back to the Authorization Server. That is a great property but makes revocation harder. So if your system requires a capability for immediate revocation of access, a JWT is probably not the right choice for an access token (though you can get pretty far by reducing the lifetime of the JWT).


As long as the Authorization Server and the Resource Server agree on what the access token means, it doesn't matter what their content is. So the only reason you could have a problem would be if you were using different libraries or frameworks when implementing those two servers.