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An IBAN (International Bank Account Number) is the ISO 13616 international standard for identifying a single bank account when sending or receiving cross-border payments. It is up to 34 characters long. Track any SWIFT payment free →
Structure: 2-letter ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code + 2 check digits + Basic Bank Account Number (BBAN, country-specific length and format). Example: DE89 3704 0044 0532 0130 00 (Germany, 22 characters). GB82 WEST 1234 5698 7654 32 (UK, 22 characters). FR76 3000 6000 0112 3456 7890 189 (France, 27 characters).
IBAN length is fixed per country — Germany 22, France 27, UK 22, Saudi Arabia 24, Norway 15, etc. The two check digits are calculated using the MOD-97 algorithm and validate the entire IBAN: if you make a single-digit typo anywhere in the IBAN, the check digits will almost certainly catch it before the payment reaches the bank.
IBAN is mandatory for all SEPA transfers (the 36 EU/EEA countries, plus Switzerland, the UK, Monaco, San Marino and a few others). It is also widely used across the Middle East (UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc.) and Turkey. The US, Canada, Japan, Australia, China and most of Asia do NOT use IBANs — for payments to those countries you supply a local account number plus a BIC/SWIFT code.
When sending to a European bank via SWIFT, you provide: (1) the recipient's IBAN, (2) the recipient bank's BIC, and (3) your own bank details. SEPA allows the BIC to be omitted for some cross-border SEPA transfers because it can be derived from the IBAN automatically, but when using SWIFT (not SEPA) the BIC is always required.
If you receive an IBAN that looks incorrect — wrong length for the country, or the check digits fail — do not send until you have confirmed it with the beneficiary. Many fraud cases involve modified IBANs that pass a casual visual check but differ by one or two digits. See /compare/bic-vs-iban for the full BIC vs IBAN comparison.
Incoming SWIFT payments to your account: you give the sender your IBAN (which encodes your account number) plus your bank's BIC. The BIC routes the payment to your bank; the IBAN routes it to your specific account within that bank. Track the incoming payment free by UETR on Ohmyfin the moment the sender provides their SWIFT confirmation.
An IBAN is an internationally formatted version of your local account number. It prepends a country code and two MOD-97 check digits to your domestic account number (BBAN) so that any bank in the world can validate and route to it without knowing your country's domestic routing format.
No. An IBAN identifies your account (what to credit). A BIC/SWIFT code identifies your bank (where to send the message). An international SWIFT transfer needs both: the BIC routes the payment to the right bank, and the IBAN routes it to the right account at that bank.
Move the first 4 characters to the end, replace letters with numbers (A=10, B=11, … Z=35), then divide by 97. If the remainder is 1, the IBAN is valid. Most online banking forms do this automatically. Ohmyfin's tracker also validates IBANs pasted into the reference field.
The US never adopted IBAN because its domestic ABA routing system already identifies banks uniquely, and the banking industry chose not to take on the cost and complexity of migrating millions of account numbers to IBAN format. To receive a SWIFT wire in the US, you provide your ABA routing number, account number, and your bank's SWIFT BIC.
In SEPA countries yes — banks are required to display your IBAN on statements and cards. In other IBAN-using countries (Middle East, etc.) it depends on the bank. If you cannot find it on your statement, log in to your bank's app or website and look under "account details" or "international transfers".
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