Integrate IBAN checks into your software
Try a validation, inspect the response, then connect your application through the API or an existing integration.
Explore the API workflowChoosing an IBAN validation API
Compare paid APIs and open-source libraries by the data returned, the number of bank lookups included and the billing period. Prices and quotas re-read on public pages on 24 September 2026; these are not interchangeable services.
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: $4 / 1,000 credits, never expire. Or $0.002–0.02 per call (x402). Free: 25 a month with no e-mail, 200 a month once claimed. | Standard, shown by default (billed annually): $63/month for 60,000 requests a year, 25 requests/second. Billed monthly: $69/month for 5,000 requests a month. Free: 100 requests, 1 request/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, under open-source licences. Your time is the cost. |
| 2,000 validations with bank data | $8 one-time (2 × 1k packs), no expiry, no subscription | The documented response provides a validity boolean, without bank data. Billed monthly, Standard is $69 for 5,000 requests a month; billed annually, $63 a month for 60,000 requests a year. | €530/year (Professional plan) | A single published plan covering 2,000 bank lookups: $115 for 365 days, including 5,000 bank lookups. The $40/180-day plan includes only 1,500. Repeat purchases are not compared here. | No API fee; bank data depends on the package and its bundled registers. Coverage and freshness must be checked. |
| Free tier | 25 requests a month with no e-mail at all, 200 a month once claimed, no card | 100 requests, 1 request per second | 100-query trial, expires after one month | 100 basic + 20 bank credits per 30 days; the free plan renews automatically, per their pricing page | Everything is free |
| Bank identification (BIC, name) | 121k+ BIC entries (entries, not institutions): GLEIF and national registers refreshed monthly, about two thirds from a public copy of the SWIFT directory frozen in January 2018; 39k+ LEI-enriched via GLEIF. Every validation names the source of its BIC. | The published response contains iban and is_valid; no BIC or bank name is documented. | Yes: IBAN Suite identifies the BIC and bank details, with BIC data licensed from S.W.I.F.T. | BIC returned “where available”, per their home page (their documentation page answered 403 when we checked) | Varies by library: schwifty can resolve an IBAN’s BIC from its bank-code data. |
| Bank code checked against the national register (a miss means not allocated) | DE, AT, BE, SK, CZ, BG, CH, LI: the national register itself. Partial lists in FI, SM and LU, where a miss is not a refusal. Elsewhere a composite map, answered with authoritative: false; none for AE, BA, EE, GE, KZ, MD, RS and TR, answered as not consulted. | Not checked by us | Not checked by us | Announced on their home page (24 September 2026): the bank code in the IBAN is resolved against their own bank registry (central banks, SEPA data and manual review). Whether a code missing from it means not allocated: not checked by us. | Varies by library: schwifty rejects a bank code unknown to its bundled registry. Others not checked by us. |
| Swiss clearing depth (SIC / euroSIC / QR-IID) | 1,100+ SIX BankMaster entries, instant-rail participation, QR-IID semantics | Not in the documented response (iban and is_valid only) | Not checked by us | Not checked by us | Not checked by us |
| Compliance pre-check (sanctions, FATF, VoP requirement) | One endpoint, $0.02: bank screening (OFAC, EU, UN), FATF lists, SEPA reachability and VoP readiness of the bank, 0–100 risk score | Not in the documented response (iban and is_valid only) | IBAN Suite announces SEPA reachability; payee-name check (BAV/VoP) sold separately, from €2,000 per 2,500 verifications; sanctions and FATF: not checked by us | Not checked by us | Not checked by us |
| AI agents (MCP, autonomous payment) | Native MCP server and x402 pay-per-call in USDC; payment does not require an account on that rail. | Not checked by us | Not checked by us | Not checked by us | No (a library, not a service) |
| Time to first call | One curl for a free key — or zero signup via x402 | Account signup | Online sign-up for a 100-query trial active one month; licences bought online at checkout, or by invoice through sales | 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 | Public terms, privacy policy, DPA and SLA; redistribution arrangements are discussed with sales. | Public terms and privacy policy; operational commitments must be checked with the provider. | License file |
Prices, quotas, free tiers and the capabilities cited in the table were re-read on public pages on 24 September 2026. The sign-up and legal-page cells for IBANAPI and AbstractAPI date from the first reading, on 10 September 2026. A silent page proves nothing: where we did not check a capability, the table says so. Billing periods and bank-data quotas are stated separately. VAT, licence conditions and current checkout terms remain those of each provider. iban.com/pricing · ibanapi.com/prices · abstractapi.com
One page per provider
IBANAPI, iban.com and AbstractAPI, each next to IBANforge: strengths, prices and when to choose which.
- An alternative to IBANAPIA free plan that renews, a self-hosted engine, prepaid credits tied to a period.
- An alternative to iban.comSWIFT-licensed BIC data, Verification of Payee, UK sort codes, annual licences.
- An alternative to AbstractAPI for IBANsA validity boolean, high request rates, an Enterprise plan with an SLA.
Where we lose, said plainly
If structure and checksum alone are enough, a local library (ibantools, schwifty, iban4j, IbanNet) costs nothing and needs no network call: every paid API, ours included, loses that comparison. For reference, AbstractAPI’s IBAN plan, which returns a validity boolean only, is shown at $63 a month billed annually for 60,000 requests a year, or $69 a month billed monthly for 5,000 requests a month.
Java 17+ and .NET 8 SDKs now exist alongside Python and TypeScript. Java is published on Maven Central; .NET is available on NuGet. These SDKs call the hosted API, whereas libraries such as iban4j and IbanNet perform local checks.
Also on the market, checked the same day
| Vendor | What it sells | Price checked on 24 September 2026 | Free tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| iban.de | IBAN calculation and validation; compare the included annual query quotas | €420 to €3,800 per year, one-year term | 100-query trial, active one month, per its developer page |
| iban-test.eu | Bank-directory checks for 40 countries, plus REST and MCP integration | €9.90/month for 100 API requests per 24 hours up to €49.90/month for 10,000 per 24 hours (or €90 to €490 a year); commercial use only, VAT excl. | 10 API requests per 24 hours |
| 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; MCP server announced | Developer plan: $39/month billed annually (the default view), $59/month billed monthly, for 100,000 calls a month; the pricing page does not mention IBAN | 3,000 per month, non-commercial use |
| openiban | Checksum plus bank enrichment for BE, DE, NL, LU, CH, AT, LI, marked “not guaranteed”; BIC data last updated on 24 January 2018, per the page | Free public service and open-source code; no paid SLA established in this comparison | Everything |
Public sources checked on 24 September 2026: iban.de · iban.de/entwickler · iban-test.eu · bankdataapi.com · api-ninjas.com · openiban.com
When IBANforge is not the right choice
You only need local structure and checksum checks. Libraries such as ibantools, schwifty, iban4j and IbanNet can avoid a remote API call. Some also include bank data: check the package’s coverage and update policy.
You need Verification of Payee, which compares the account holder’s name at the bank. Dedicated services, including iban.com’s BAV/VoP API, cover that use case. IBANforge provides input-time bank-data pre-checks and does not perform 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.
German, Austrian, Belgian, Slovak and Bulgarian bank codes checked against the national register: a well-formed IBAN whose bank code nobody holds is caught before the payment.
Swiss payments: every IID of the SIX BankMaster with its rail participation (SIC, euroSIC, CHF instant), and its QR-IID where SIX allocates one.
One compliance triage call before a payout: bank-level sanctions + FATF + SEPA reachability + VoP readiness + 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.
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Explore the file auditAvailable bank information varies by country and source. These checks do not confirm the account holder or guarantee that a payment will succeed.