SWIFT codes explained: how to read, find and verify a BIC

A SWIFT code is the address a bank puts on an international payment message. It identifies a bank or one of its offices, never your account, and the money travels separately. Below, a made-up code is decoded character by character, followed by the checks to run before you wire money, the path a payment takes and what the move to ISO 20022 changed. For the account number on the same form, see IBAN explained; for every other step of sending money, the money transfer hub.

What is a SWIFT code?

A SWIFT code is a business identifier code, or BIC, defined by the international standard ISO 9362 and used to address payment and other financial messages to one institution.

SWIFT, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, is a member-owned cooperative founded in 1973 and based in Belgium. It registers the codes for ISO and runs the network linking more than 12,500 institutions in over 200 countries and territories. Companies and non-bank financial firms can hold BICs too, so a code alone does not prove an organization is a bank. Forms may label the field SWIFT, BIC or SWIFT/BIC, and it always sits beside an account identifier: an IBAN in the 89 countries and territories that use one, or a local account number elsewhere.

How do you read the 8 or 11 characters?

Split the code into four blocks: a 4-character party prefix, a 2-letter country code, a 2-character party suffix and, only on 11-character codes, a 3-character branch identifier.

Older guides say the suffix names a city and that a 1 in position 8 marks an institution not connected to SWIFT. Neither has been dependable since a transition that ended in November 2018, and connectivity now lives in SWIFT's directory instead. The rule that a 0 in position 8 means a test code still stands.

Is an 8-character SWIFT code the same as an 11-character one?

An 8-character code and the same code followed by XXX are interchangeable, and both reach the institution's primary office.

If a form wants 11 characters and you have 8, add XXX rather than inventing a branch identifier, which would create a code that does not exist. If the recipient's bank gives a real branch identifier, copy it exactly: some banks use them for departments, so payments reach the team that credits accounts. Either way the money goes to the institution, and the account number decides whose balance rises.

How do you find and verify a SWIFT code?

Ask the recipient for their bank's own wire instructions in writing, then confirm the code in SWIFT's free BIC Search before any money leaves your account.

1. Get the bank's own instructions

   Ask for the incoming-wire instructions the bank publishes, or a screenshot of the account details page in online banking, rather than a code retyped into a message.

2. Look it up on swift.com

   SWIFT's free BIC Search shows the registered name, city and country after a captcha. It covers only part of SWIFT's directory, so a missing code is a reason to ask questions, not proof of fraud.

3. Match it to the account

   Positions 5 and 6 should normally match the first two letters of the recipient's IBAN. A British IBAN paired with the code of the group's office in another country sends the message to an entity that does not hold the account.

4. Check for an intermediary

   Dollar payments to banks outside the US, and payments to small banks anywhere, may need an intermediary bank's BIC. It goes in the intermediary field, never in place of the beneficiary bank's code.

5. Confirm changes by phone

   If the details differ from last time, call the recipient on a number you already have. New bank details sent by email are a classic sign of business email compromise.

Why do some US banks use one SWIFT code for every branch?

Most US banks route all international payments through one central wire department, so a single head-office code serves every branch in every state.

Domestic US payments are addressed by ABA routing number over Fedwire, ACH and the instant payment systems, so branches never need a SWIFT address. Only cross-border messages use the code, and they all land in one back office, which is why a customer in Ohio and one in Texas get the same 8-character code, or the same code ending in XXX.

Many community banks and credit unions are not on the SWIFT network at all. They receive foreign payments through a larger correspondent, so the sender lists the correspondent's BIC as intermediary, plus the local bank's routing number and the customer's account number. Routing number vs SWIFT code shows which number goes where, and receiving money from abroad in the US covers what to send a payer. Banks in other countries vary, and some publish branch-level codes, so use the exact code the recipient's bank gives.

What happens to a SWIFT payment, step by step?

Your bank sends an instruction message to the next bank in the chain, while the money settles separately through accounts those banks keep with each other.

1. You give the instruction. Your bank checks the beneficiary's details and the BIC, debits your account and assigns the payment a UETR, the tracking reference covered in the next section.
2. The customer message goes out. Your bank sends a pacs.008, the ISO 20022 customer credit transfer that replaced the MT 103, addressed by BIC to the next bank in the chain.
3. The banks settle. Banks that hold accounts with each other simply debit or credit them. Otherwise correspondents sit in between: the payment passes along their accounts, or a separate cover payment, a pacs.009 COV, moves the funds while the customer message goes direct.
4. Local settlement, where needed. The last interbank leg often runs through the currency's home system, so a dollar payment commonly ends with a Fedwire or CHIPS transfer.
5. The beneficiary bank credits the account and reports the credit, rejection or return to SWIFT's tracker.

Chains are usually short: SWIFT says 86% of payments on its network go direct or through one intermediary, and 90% of cross-border payments reach the beneficiary's bank in under an hour. Most delay happens at that last bank, before the customer is credited, because of compliance checks, cut-off times or holidays. See how long international transfers take for timelines and international wire transfer fees for what each bank can deduct.

How does SWIFT gpi tracking work?

Each payment carries a UETR, a 36-character reference that every bank in the chain must pass on unchanged, so any of them can look up where the payment is.

The UETR has been mandatory on SWIFT payment messages since November 2018. It uses the version 4 UUID format, 32 lowercase hexadecimal characters in five hyphenated groups, as in the made-up 6f1c2b9e-83d4-4a7f-b2c5-09e1d7a3f864, where the 4 opening the third group marks the version. SWIFT gpi (global payments innovation), launched in 2017, logs each step against that reference: forwarding, deductions, holds and the final credit. By SWIFT's figures, nearly 60% of gpi payments reach the end customer's account in under 30 minutes, and almost every one does so within a day. The tracker is for banks, not the public, so keep the UETR from your confirmation and quote it to your bank if a payment is late.

What changed when SWIFT moved to ISO 20022?

Since November 22, 2025, cross-border payment instructions on SWIFT must be ISO 20022 messages; the few MT payment formats still accepted are converted for a fee.

About 97% of payment traffic was in ISO 20022 after the cutover weekend, and more than 98% by August 2026. SWIFT still converts the MT 103, MT 202 and MT 202 COV under a contingency service, with extra validation and a fee since January 1, 2026, and no longer accepts types such as the MT 102 and MT 103 REMIT.

For customers, the visible change is data. ISO 20022 has separate fields for street, building number, postcode, town and country, which is why wire forms now ask for addresses piece by piece. SWIFT had planned to reject fully unstructured addresses from November 14, 2026, but on August 27, 2026 it postponed that year's payment changes and promised a new timeline by December 2026. Until then a hybrid address, with town and country in their own fields plus up to two free-text lines, is the minimum. Fedwire's own switch, in July 2025, is covered in ACH vs wire transfer.

What does SWIFT not do?

SWIFT moves messages, not money: it holds no customer funds, sets no exchange rates or fees, and cannot reverse a payment on its own.

SWIFT calls itself a secure messaging system and says the actual transfer of funds happens through banks. The Bank for International Settlements defines correspondent banking as an arrangement under which one bank holds deposits owned by other banks and provides payment services to them. A bank's balance at a foreign bank is its nostro account (Latin for ours); seen from the other side it is a vostro (yours). Payment messages tell banks which of those balances to debit and credit, which explains what customers see:

• Fees come from banks. Each bank in the chain sets its own charge, so less can arrive than was sent.
• Rates come from whichever bank converts. Compare any quote with the mid-market rate on our currency converter.
• Recalls need the holding bank's consent. Your bank can request a return, but only the bank with the money can send it back.
• Names are not matched by the network. Payments are delivered by BIC and credited by account number; euro-area banks now check payee names first, as the SEPA transfers guide explains.

The money transfer cost calculator shows what a transfer costs once every bank has taken its share.

What are the most common SWIFT code mistakes?

The expensive mistakes usually involve a real code in the wrong place, not a typo, because a mistyped code usually fails validation before any money moves.

That last row is the costly one. The FBI's Internet Crime Complaint Center recorded $3.05 billion in business email compromise losses in 2025. A lookup confirms that a bank exists; only a call to someone you know confirms whose account it is. More warning signs are in money transfer scams.