IBAN Validator & Parser

about this tool

How an IBAN is checked

An IBAN is a country code, two check digits, and the account number the country already used, its BBAN. Three checks apply, and this tool runs all three in the page:

• The check digits. Move the first four characters to the end, turn each letter into a number (A is 10, B is 11 and so on), and divide by 97: a valid IBAN leaves 1. A wrong digit for a digit, or a wrong letter for a letter, always fails, and so do nearly all swaps of two neighbours. A letter typed for a digit, where a country allows either, slips through about once in 97.
• The country's length and layout. Each country fixes how long its IBANs are and where letters and digits go: 22 characters in the United Kingdom, a four-letter bank code then fourteen digits. When a character is the wrong kind for its place, the tool says which one, and points out the usual mix-ups such as the letter O for a zero.
• The bank's own check digits. Some countries put check digits inside the account number too. They are checked for 17 of them, Spain, France, Belgium, Norway, Poland and Portugal among them; Italy's and Germany's are not.

A valid IBAN also shows its parts: the country, whether it is in SEPA (by the EPC's current list), the check digits, the bank and branch codes where its country has them, and the account number (BBAN).

What valid does not mean

The checks show an IBAN is well formed. They cannot show that the account exists or whose it is, so confirm the payee's name with your bank before sending money. And when an IBAN fails, the tool does not offer a corrected one: a guess that passes could be someone else's account. Copy it again from where it came from.

Lists

Paste up to 500 IBANs, one a line or separated by commas, and each is checked; copy the valid ones in the compact form payment systems take, or download the results as CSV (a spreadsheet may drop the leading zeros of a bank code unless that column is opened as text). Nothing is sent anywhere. For test data, fake data makes IBANs that pass the checks on a bank code no bank uses.

questions

What does “valid” mean for an IBAN?

That it is well formed: its two check digits match the rest under the mod-97 rule, it has the length and layout its country sets, and, in the 17 countries whose bank check digits it knows, Spain, France, Belgium and Norway among them, those match too. It does not mean the account exists or tell you whose it is. Only the bank can, so confirm the payee’s name before sending money.

Why does it not suggest the correct IBAN?

Because a guess that passes the check digits could be a real account belonging to someone else. The check digits catch a wrong digit typed for a digit, or a wrong letter for a letter, every time, and nearly every swap of two neighbours, but they cannot say which character is wrong. The tool points to the character when the country’s layout shows it, a letter where a digit belongs for instance, and otherwise asks you to copy the IBAN again from its source.

Does it work for every country?

For all 89 countries in the SWIFT IBAN registry, and for 22 more whose banks use the IBAN format unofficially, which it marks as such. Territories that use another country’s IBANs, such as Jersey (GB) or Réunion (FR), are pointed to that country’s code. A country that does not use IBANs, such as the United States, Canada or Australia, is named as one: a bank account there has no IBAN, whatever a form asks.

What is a QR-IBAN?

A special IBAN used only on Swiss and Liechtenstein QR bills, recognisable by a bank code from 30000 to 31999. It is valid, but only for paying a QR bill; an ordinary transfer to the same account needs its ordinary IBAN.

Is the IBAN sent anywhere?

No. Every check runs in your browser from the published country rules; nothing is looked up online, so a list of customers’ bank details stays on your computer.