diff --git a/yt_dlp/utils.py b/yt_dlp/utils.py
index 48baa6503c..080bf260a2 100644
--- a/yt_dlp/utils.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/utils.py
@@ -6512,6 +6512,13 @@ def jwt_encode_hs256(payload_data, key, headers={}):
     return token
 
 
+# can be extended in future to verify the signature and parse header and return the algorithm used if it's not HS256
+def jwt_decode_hs256(jwt):
+    header_b64, payload_b64, signature_b64 = jwt.split('.')
+    payload_data = json.loads(base64.urlsafe_b64decode(payload_b64))
+    return payload_data
+
+
 def supports_terminal_sequences(stream):
     if compat_os_name == 'nt':
         if get_windows_version() < (10, 0, 10586):