An IBAN (International Bank Account Number) identifies an individual bank account for international transfers, used across Europe and much of the world. Australia does not use IBANs: transfers to Australia use a BSB and account number instead, while transfers to many overseas destinations require one.
An IBAN encodes the country, a check digit, the bank and the account into a single string of up to 34 characters, which lets the receiving system validate the account before any money moves. It is mandatory for payments within Europe’s SEPA zone and standard across the Middle East and parts of Asia and the Caribbean.
The asymmetry trips people in both directions. An Australian sending money to Germany will be asked for the recipient’s IBAN and should get it from the recipient exactly as their bank states it. Someone in Europe sending money to Australia may ask for your IBAN, and the correct answer is that Australian accounts do not have one: they need your bank’s SWIFT code, your BSB and your account number.
The two digits after the country code are a checksum, and testing them is one division. Take the German example in the IBAN registry Swift publishes, DE89370400440532013000. Move the first four characters to the end, giving 370400440532013000DE89. Substitute each letter for a number from the standard table, in which A is 10 and Z is 35, so D becomes 13 and E becomes 14. The string is now the 24-digit integer 370400440532013000131489. Divide that by 97. The remainder is 1, and 1 is the only remainder a valid IBAN leaves under the MOD 97-10 scheme of ISO/IEC 7064. The test runs on the whole number, so it is not checking any one field: alter a single character, the last 0 to an 8, and the remainder comes out 23.
Tradergy’s corridor pages note the account-identifier conventions on each end of a transfer alongside the live rate.
Longer read: Who maintains the codes on an international transfer. Three codes on one payment instruction, kept in three separate registers by three different bodies. What each one names, how a country gets its format onto the list, why Australia never did, and the question none of them answers.
This page explains the term; the send-money corridor pages has the working numbers.
Related terms
SWIFT code (BIC) · BSB number · All terms
Primary authority: Swift, IBAN (ISO 13616). Definition reviewed against the authority’s published material; this page is reference information, not advice.
Common questions
What is the IBAN for my Australian account?
There isn’t one. Australia has never adopted the IBAN standard. An overseas sender should use your bank’s SWIFT code together with your BSB and account number; those three details do the job an IBAN does elsewhere.
What happens if an IBAN is entered incorrectly?
The built-in check digits catch most typing errors before the payment is sent, and the transfer is rejected rather than misdirected. A structurally valid but wrong IBAN can still send money to the wrong account, so the number should always be copied exactly from the recipient.
Which countries use IBANs?
All of Europe and the United Kingdom, most of the Middle East and North Africa, and a growing list elsewhere. The United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand are the notable holdouts, each keeping its own domestic account-numbering scheme.