Before the IBAN, every country identified bank accounts in its own way. A French RIB, a German Kontonummer with its Bankleitzahl and a British sort code had different lengths, different fields and different check rules. Banks receiving a payment from abroad often had to fix incomplete or wrong account details by hand, which made cross-border transfers slow and expensive.
A European standard first
The IBAN was designed by the European Committee for Banking Standards (ECBS). Its standard EBS204, "IBAN: International Bank Account Number", was first issued in November 1996. The committee also kept a register of the national account formats of its member countries.
The designers considered a single account number format for everyone and dropped the idea; the standard itself calls it "an idea rapidly discarded as infeasible and impractical". They chose a wrapper instead: each country keeps its existing national number, the BBAN, and puts a country code and two check digits in front of it. That decision explains why IBANs still look different from country to country.
From ECBS to ISO 13616
The ECBS work became an international standard, ISO 13616, in four editions:
| Year | Edition | What it brought |
|---|---|---|
| 1997 | ISO 13616:1997 | First international edition |
| 2003 | ISO 13616:2003 | Second edition, replacing the first |
| 2007 | ISO 13616-1 and 13616-2 | Split into two parts: the structure of the IBAN, and the role of the registration authority |
| 2020 | ISO 13616-1:2020 and 13616-2:2020 | Minor revision; the printed format annex became informative. Confirmed as current in 2026 |
The check digit method, MOD 97-10, comes from a separate standard, ISO/IEC 7064. How IBAN check digits work shows it step by step.
The first IBANs
Countries started issuing IBANs at different times. The ECBS register lists France first, in 1997, followed by Germany on 1 February 1998. A few more dates from the same register:
| Country | Banks started issuing IBANs |
|---|---|
| France | 1997 |
| Germany | February 1998 |
| Netherlands | August 1999 |
| Italy | January 2000 |
| Spain, Belgium | June 2000 |
| United Kingdom | April 2001 |
| Greece | January 2002 |
| Poland, Slovakia | May 2004 |
| Tunisia | April 2004, the first country outside Europe in the register |
| Turkey | September 2005 |
SWIFT and the IBAN Registry
In 2006 ISO designated SWIFT as the registration authority for ISO 13616. SWIFT published the first version of its IBAN Registry in April 2007 and has kept it up to date since. Only a national standards body or a national central bank can ask SWIFT to register a country or change its format.
The registry grew steadily. It listed 51 countries and territories in January 2011, 77 in May 2020 and 89 from December 2024. Release 102, published in June 2026, still lists 89.
The IBAN spreads beyond Europe
A selection of countries that joined the registry after Europe:
| Year | Countries added |
|---|---|
| 2008 | Saudi Arabia |
| 2010 | Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Georgia |
| 2011 | United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica, Bahrain |
| 2012 | Pakistan, Guatemala, Palestine |
| 2013 | Brazil, Qatar |
| 2014 | Jordan, Kosovo (with the code XK, which is not an official ISO country code) |
| 2016 | Ukraine |
| 2016 to 2017 | El Salvador, Iraq, Belarus |
| 2020 | Egypt, Libya |
| 2021 | Sudan, Burundi |
| 2022 | Djibouti, Russia |
| 2023 | Somalia, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Falkland Islands |
| 2024 | Oman, Yemen, Honduras |
Vatican City was added around 2018 and 2019, when it also joined the SEPA area. Some dates are approximate because the registry's public change logs have gaps.
Formats that changed
National formats are stable, but a few have changed:
- Costa Rica changed from 21 to 22 characters in 2016. It is the only length change we found in the registry releases published since 2011.
- Serbia changed its country code. IBANs issued under the joint code CS of Serbia and Montenegro became RS IBANs on 3 March 2007.
- Brazil's bank code can now contain letters. Since an update effective in August 2026 (Banco Central do Brasil Resolution 585), the 8-character ISPB code at the start of the BBAN may contain letters as well as digits; the length stays 29 characters.
- Adopting the euro did not change the IBAN in Croatia (2023) or Bulgaria (2026): their IBANs contain no currency code, so both countries kept their formats. A few formats do include one, such as those of Mauritius and Seychelles.
SEPA makes the IBAN mandatory
For years the IBAN was mainly an international identifier. That changed with the Single Euro Payments Area. An EU regulation from 2012 required euro transfers and direct debits to use the IBAN from 1 February 2014, with a transition period until 1 August 2014, and from 31 October 2016 in EU countries outside the euro area. Banks were also forbidden from asking customers for the BIC. IBAN and SEPA tells that part of the story.
Since 9 October 2025, banks in the euro area must also check that the IBAN matches the name of the person or company you are paying, before you confirm a transfer. This is called Verification of Payee, and it comes from Regulation (EU) 2024/886.
Today
The IBAN Registry lists 89 countries and territories. The shortest IBAN is Norway's, with 15 characters, and the longest is Russia's, with 33. The standard allows up to 34, but no country uses them all.
Large economies such as the United States, China, India, Japan, Canada and Australia still use their own account numbers; see countries that do not use IBAN.
Sources
- ISO 13616-1:2020: the current edition of the IBAN standard.
- ISO/IEC 7064: the MOD 97-10 check digit method.
- SWIFT IBAN Registry, Release 102 (June 2026), and its published change logs: the countries, formats and dates in this article.
- Regulation (EU) No 260/2012: the SEPA deadlines and the IBAN-only rule.
- Regulation (EU) 2024/886: Verification of Payee.
- ECBS, EBS204 "IBAN: International Bank Account Number" (1996 and later editions) and the ECBS register of national formats: the origin of the IBAN and the first issuing dates.