Choosing an IBAN validation API
Five realistic options: the cheapest boolean on the market, two established commercial APIs, the open-source libraries, and us. Same word on the tin, very different objects inside. Every price below was read from a public pricing page on September 2, 2026.
We sell one of the products in this table — read it with that in mind. Every number is dated and comes from a public page; if we got something wrong or a price changed, tell us at support@ibanforge.com and we will fix it.
Side by side
| Capability | IBANforge | AbstractAPI | iban.com (IBAN Suite) | IBANAPI | Open-source libs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Prepaid packs: $5 / 1,000 credits, never expire. Or $0.002–0.02 per call (x402). Free: 200/month. | Monthly subscription: $99/month for 60,000 requests per month (about $0.00165 per call), volume slider to $199 and $499. Free: 100 requests, 1 request per second. | Annual subscription: €530/year (2,000 lookups) to €4,150/year (unlimited), 1-year minimum, VAT excl. | Prepaid credits that expire with the plan: $15 for 60 days (2,000 basic + 400 bank lookups) to $115 for a year (30,000 + 5,000). | Free (MIT/LGPL). Your time is the cost. |
| 2,000 validations with bank data | $10 one-time (2 × 1k packs) — no expiry, no subscription | No bank data at any price: the response is {"iban": "...", "is_valid": true}. For 2,000 boolean checks, $99/month. | €530/year (Professional plan) | ≥ $40/month tier (bank credits are the binding limit: 400/month at $15) | $0 — but no bank data at all (structure + checksum only) |
| Free tier | 200 requests/month, no card, key by email in one call | 100 requests, 1 request per second | 100-query trial, expires after one month | 100 basic + 20 bank credits, 30 days | Everything is free |
| Bank identification (BIC, name) | 121k+ BICs, 39k+ LEI-enriched via GLEIF, refreshed monthly | No. A boolean only | Yes — their core product | “If available” per their docs | No — structural validation only |
| Swiss clearing depth (SIC / euroSIC / QR-IID) | 1,100+ SIX BankMaster entries, instant-rail participation, QR-IID semantics | No | Not exposed as a product | No | No |
| Compliance pre-check (sanctions, FATF, VoP requirement) | One endpoint, $0.02: bank screening (OFAC, EU, UN), FATF lists, SEPA/VoP data, 0–100 risk score | No | Separate products (BAV/VoP from €2,000 per 2,500 verifications) | No | No |
| AI agents (MCP, autonomous payment) | Native MCP server (8 tools) + x402 pay-per-call in USDC — an agent can pay without an account | No | No | No | No (a library, not a service) |
| Time to first call | One curl for a free key — or zero signup via x402 | Account signup | Order form, annual contract | Account signup | npm/pip install |
| Published legal/ops surface | ToS, privacy, pre-signed DPA, OEM SLA, live status page — all public. Telemetry self-deletes 30 days after termination (DPA 4.7) | ToS and privacy published | Enterprise terms on request (not published as of July 2026) | ToS/privacy published; no public status page found (July 2026) | License file |
Prices checked on July 11, 2026 on iban.com/pricing and ibanapi.com/prices. VAT and plan details are theirs to change; the linked pages are authoritative. iban.com/pricing · ibanapi.com/prices · abstractapi.com
Where we lose, said plainly
Per call, AbstractAPI is three times cheaper than us: about $0.00165 against $0.005. If a boolean is all you need, 60,000 checks a month cost $99 there and about $200 in our 25,000-credit packs. You are not buying the same object, but you should know the number.
Java and .NET have no IBANforge SDK yet. IbanNet and iban4j are the de facto standards of those ecosystems for structure and checksum; we serve the data they refuse to serve, through REST, Python and TypeScript.
Also on the market, checked the same day
| Vendor | What it sells | Price read on September 2, 2026 | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| iban.de | IBAN calculation and validation, same tiers as iban.com, about 20% cheaper | €420 to €3,800 per year, one-year term | None found |
| iban-test.eu | 40 countries against real directories, 111 in syntax only, a hosted MCP server | 10 free checks, then a paid grid not extracted | 10 checks |
| apilayer bankdataapi | IBAN, SWIFT, German BLZ, US routing numbers | $39.99/month for 2,500 to $239.99/month for 60,000 | 100 per month |
| API Ninjas | IBAN decomposition; bank name, address and BIC reserved to paid plans | $39/month for 100,000 calls shared across all their APIs | 3,000 per month, non-commercial use |
| openiban | Checksum plus bank enrichment for BE, DE, NL, LU, CH, AT, LI | Free forever, open source | Everything |
Verified September 2, 2026: iban.de · iban-test.eu · bankdataapi.com · api-ninjas.com · openiban.com
When IBANforge is not the right choice
You only need structure + checksum validation. A free library (ibantools, schwifty, iban4j, IbanNet) does that locally with zero latency and zero cost. Honestly: start there — come back when you need bank data, rails or compliance signals.
You need real Verification of Payee — matching the account holder's NAME at the bank. That is a regulated-PSP network (EPC scheme). Nobody sells it as a simple API; iban.com's BAV product and bank-side services cover it. IBANforge does input-time pre-checks, not name matching.
You need UK-specific directories (sort codes, EISCD). iban.com's SORTware is built for that.
You want an account manager and a negotiated paper contract from day one — the annual-subscription vendors are structured for that; we offer it only through the OEM agreement.
Where IBANforge is the strong pick
Pay-once economics: prepaid credits that never expire instead of a subscription you must amortize.
Swiss payments: the deepest public Swiss clearing data of any IBAN API (SIX BankMaster, instant rails, QR-IID).
One compliance triage call before a payout: sanctions + FATF + SEPA/VoP + risk score in a single $0.02 request.
AI agents and automation: native MCP tools, machine-readable 402s with exact top-up instructions, x402 autonomous payment.
Try it against your own IBANs
200 free requests a month, no card. The playground runs the real API.