Who issues local IBANs in Europe - the coverage map

By Mikolaj Slezak · Published , updated

"IBAN discrimination" - an employer, biller or direct-debit originator refusing a payment account because its IBAN starts with the "wrong" country code - has been illegal since SEPA Regulation 260/2012, Article 9. It still happens every day. The practical fix is not litigation; it is an account with a local country code. So we verified, provider by provider, who can actually issue which IBAN country codes - across the 52 verified IBAN sponsors in this catalogue (as of 2026-07-19).

The coverage map: 21 country codes, very unevenly served

Counting only issuance documented at source (a provider's own site or developer docs - method: how we verify), local-IBAN coverage looks like this:

IBAN codeProvidersRead it as
GB17The deepest market by far - but see the Brexit caveat below
LT9The EMI capital's home advantage: LT IBANs are the default of the licence hub
NL6Strong second tier
FR7Driven by the French embedded-finance scene (Swan, Treezor, Xpollens, Okali...)
ES6Includes two Spanish EMIs issuing domestic IBANs
DE5Thin for Europe's largest economy
BE5Punches above its weight (Swan, Vodeno, Wise...)
LU · MT · IE3 eachLicence-hub side effects
IT · BG · EE · CY · CH · DK2 eachMinimal redundancy - one provider outage from a single option
GR · FI · NO · SE · SK1 eachSingle point of failure

The live version of this table - with provider names - sits on the IBAN sponsors hub, and each linked country page lists the providers with documented issuance.

The white spots: Poland, Austria, Portugal - zero

Three sizeable EU economies have no dedicated local-IBAN issuer in this verified set: Poland, Austria and Portugal. Czechia, Hungary, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia and Latvia are also at zero. A fintech targeting those markets today runs on a cross-border EEA IBAN (typically LT, DE or NL) and absorbs the IBAN-discrimination friction - or waits: Vodeno documents Polish IBAN formats on its roadmap-facing pages, and instant PLN rails exist. To be clear about scope: this measures the specialist IBAN-as-a-service supply we have verified, not every domestic bank - but it is exactly the supply a fintech can actually contract.

The Brexit caveat on GB's 17

GB is the best-covered code - 17 providers - but a GB IBAN now comes from a UK-authorised entity (FCA), not from an EEA passport. Post-Brexit, UK-only EMIs lost EEA reach entirely; several sponsors in this set therefore run dual stacks (a UK entity for GB accounts, an EEA entity for euro IBANs). If you need both, check which group entity you contract with - the register entries on each profile name them.

Bank or EMI? What actually happens to the money

Of the 52: 9 are banks (credit institutions), 35 are EMIs, 4 are payment institutions. The difference is not branding: with a bank your balance is a deposit protected by a deposit guarantee scheme (up to EUR 100,000; GBP 85,000 under the UK's FSCS). With an EMI or PI the funds are safeguarded - segregated at a credit institution, ring-fenced from creditors, but not deposit-guaranteed. Every card on the hub now carries its licence badge, so the regime is visible at a glance.

Rails depth: direct debit is where discrimination actually bites

An IBAN is only as useful as the rails behind it. Across the 52 providers (51 with rails documented at source):

That last line matters most: IBAN discrimination hurts precisely when a biller tries to collect - salaries come in fine, but the gym, the tax office or the utility wants to pull a direct debit. A local IBAN on an account that cannot receive SDD only solves half the problem. The "Payment rails" filter in the live catalogue surfaces the providers with documented SDD support.

Virtual, dedicated, or named?

Account models split almost evenly: 33 providers document dedicated accounts (opened in the customer's own name), 28 virtual IBANs, and 8 explicitly offer named virtual IBANs (end-customer names on vIBANs - OpenPayd, Striga, LHV, Clear Junction, Mangopay, Currencycloud, TrustPay, Fabrick). EUR accounts are near-universal (50), GBP 30, USD 21 - then a long tail led by PLN (12), DKK (11) and SEK (10).

What we would ask a provider (and what we asked the data)

Or skip the spreadsheet: request a match and we hand-pick three verified providers against your markets - free, neutral, zero pay-to-rank. You can also score your current stack with the sovereignty scorecard.

Sources

Issuing accounts is jurisdiction by jurisdiction — if you need local IBANs (or documented SEPA Direct Debit) in specific markets, request a match and we’ll hand-pick three verified sponsors against your markets, licence and EEA requirements. Free, neutral, zero pay-to-rank.

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