What does DNOR mean as a SWIFT reject code?

DNOR means 'Debtor Bank not Registered in Payment Scheme'. The BIC of the originating (sender's) bank is not recognised in the relevant payment scheme. This is rare and indicates a configuration issue at the sender's bank side — not something the customer can fix. The sender's bank must resolve it with SWIFT directly.

Details

DNOR is the mirror of CNOR — it applies to the debtor (sender) bank rather than the creditor (beneficiary) bank. It means a receiving bank in the chain has rejected the payment because the originating bank's BIC is not registered in the payment scheme being used.

This is extremely unusual in normal GPI traffic because all banks that send SWIFT messages are by definition registered in SWIFT. DNOR more commonly appears in domestic payment scheme contexts (e.g. SEPA Instant Credit Transfer) where not all banks are registered in the instant scheme.

What to do: contact your (sender's) bank immediately and report the DNOR reject. This is entirely their issue to resolve — either their BIC registration has lapsed or there is a configuration error on their end. Demand they resend the payment through a route that works, or escalate to their correspondent banking team.

Key facts

• DNOR = Debtor Bank not Registered — sender's bank BIC not in the payment scheme
• Rare in normal GPI; more common in domestic scheme contexts (SEPA Instant, etc.)
• This is the sender's bank's error — not the customer's problem
• Report to sender's bank and demand they resolve + resend

Frequently asked questions

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