What is a BIC or SWIFT code?

A BIC (Bank Identifier Code), commonly called a SWIFT code, identifies a specific bank or branch in international payments. It follows the ISO 9362 standard and is 8 characters for a head office or 11 for a specific branch.

What does each part of a BIC mean?

The first 4 letters are the bank code, the next 2 are the ISO 3166 country code, the following 2 (letters or digits) are the location code, and the optional final 3 (the branch code) identify a particular branch. 'XXX' or a missing branch means the head office.

Can a BIC be checked without contacting SWIFT?

You can fully validate the format and structure offline — length, character classes, and the country code — which catches most typos. Confirming the code is actively registered to a live institution requires the official SWIFT directory.

Why must the location code's second character not be 0 or 1?

By ISO 9362 convention, a location code ending in 0 is reserved for test/training BICs and 1 denotes a passive participant not connected to the live network, so a valid live BIC normally avoids those second characters.

Is the country code validated?

Yes. This tool checks the two-letter country segment against the ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 list, so an invalid country like 'ZZ' is flagged even when the overall length is correct.

BIC/SWIFT Code Validator

A BIC (Bank Identifier Code), widely known as a SWIFT code, is the standardised identifier used to route international wire transfers to the right bank and branch. It is defined by ISO 9362 and is either 8 characters (institution / head office) or 11 characters (a specific branch). This validator checks the structure of each segment so you can catch typos before sending a payment.

How it works

ISO 9362 fixes the layout of every BIC:

Bank code — 4 letters (A–Z) identifying the institution.
Country code — 2 letters, a valid ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country.
Location code — 2 characters (letters or digits). By convention the second character is not 0 (test) or 1 (passive).
Branch code — optional 3 characters (letters or digits). Absent or XXX means the head office.

So the valid total length is exactly 8 or 11 characters. The tool verifies each character class and the country code, then shows the decomposed segments.

Example

Take DEUTDEFF500:

DEUT  DE  FF  500
bank  ctry loc branch

DEUT is a valid 4-letter bank code, DE is Germany, FF is the location, and 500 is a branch — 11 characters, well-formed. DEUTDEFF (8 chars) is the same bank’s head office.

Notes

A structurally valid BIC is not a guarantee the code is registered to an active bank — only the official SWIFT directory confirms that. Use this tool to eliminate format errors and transpositions. All checks run locally in your browser.