One directory of institutions, with or without a BIC

Coverage and place

US money service businesses make up more than a third of the directory

The directory lists every institution in Swift’s BIC directory, in 231 countries, and the institutions on 22 tracked registers in 37 countries. The largest register, FinCEN’s MSB Registrant Search, lists 31,128 money service businesses in the United States: 39% of the 79,666 institutions.

That register shapes every total below. Outside the United States, 32,518 of the 44,643 institutions (73%) hold a BIC, and 54% of all institutions that hold a BIC are in Europe and Central Asia. Select a country to open its page.

What they are

Few payment, crypto and money service firms hold a BIC

Of the 44,161 payment and e-money, crypto-asset and money service firms, 963 (2.2%) hold a BIC. Every financial institution and non-financial corporate holds one: those two types come from Swift’s BIC directory itself.

Types come from Swift’s BIC classification, the licences on the tracked registers, and the ECB and FSB bank lists. The 2,017 credit institutions are those on the ECB or FSB lists; most banks outside the euro area appear as financial institutions, because their supervisors’ registers are not tracked yet.

How they are identified

An LEI is mapped for more than half of the institutions that hold a BIC

A BIC identifies where a payment is routed. The Legal Entity Identifier (LEI) identifies the legal entity behind it.

Of the 36,468 institutions that hold a BIC, 20,116 (55%) have an LEI mapped, against 2,885 (7%) of the 43,198 that do not. Outside the United States, 20,639 of 44,643 institutions (46%) have one.

However, the two LEI rates are not directly comparable. LEIs of institutions that hold a BIC come from the Swift and GLEIF BIC-to-LEI file; for the others, Elucidate matches register records to GLEIF.

In a Swift cross-border ISO 20022 payment message (CBPR+), an institution without a BIC is identified by its name and postal address. Its LEI can be added. An LEI is mapped for 64% of payment and e-money institutions, 17% of crypto-asset service providers and 2.3% of money service businesses.

How they are regulated

Most institutions on a tracked register are registered for AML only

Of the 44,095 institutions on a tracked register, 39,967 (91%) are registered with an anti-money-laundering supervisor without a prudential licence. Outside the United States the share is 68% (8,869 of 12,997). A registration is not an authorisation.

Another 4,401 institutions are prudentially supervised, through a licence on a tracked register or the ECB or FSB bank lists. The 33,557 that are not on a tracked register all hold a BIC. Bank licences granted by national supervisors are not tracked yet, so this does not mean that they are unregulated.

In the euro area, the ECB directly supervises 805 institutions that hold a BIC as significant institutions. Another 798 are less significant institutions, supervised by national authorities within the Single Supervisory Mechanism.

Sanctions

Most sanctioned institutions are in Russia

Of the 36,468 institutions that hold a BIC, 147 appear on the OFAC or EU sanctions lists. Of these, 74% are in Russia, and 99 were first listed between 2022 and 2024, following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Sanctions listings are matched on the BIC and on the LEI mapped to it, so they cover institutions that hold a BIC only. Institutions that do not hold a BIC are not screened. Listings are not the only exposure: some countries are subject to comprehensive embargoes or sector-wide financial sanctions, which apply to every institution there.

Groups and systemic importance

G-SIB groups have institutions in more than half of all countries

Through branches and subsidiaries, the 29 global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) on the Financial Stability Board’s 2025 list account for 1,916 institutions that hold a BIC, in 134 countries. Each group holds extra capital according to its bucket.

GLEIF records 1,133 corporate groups with two or more institutions in the directory. Of these, 121 combine institutions that hold a BIC with institutions that do not.

Payments & connectivity

Most SEPA institutions now accept instant credit transfers

Payment-scheme and Swift network data exist only for the 36,468 institutions that hold a BIC.

Of the 1,927 institutions reachable for SEPA Credit Transfer, 66% also accept SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. Verification of Payee, which the EU Instant Payments Regulation has required for euro credit transfers since 9 October 2025, is offered by 1,236.

Outside the SEPA schemes, 1,160 institutions in 146 countries are Swift GPI members. GPI tracks cross-border payments end to end.

A BIC does not imply a connection to the Swift network. Of the institutions that hold a BIC, 51% are passive participants: their BIC is registered for identification only, and messages reach them through a correspondent.

Growth

Corporates register a growing share of new BIC codes

Since 2015, non-financial corporates have registered 11% of the BIC codes registered each year. Before 2005, they registered almost none. More corporate treasuries now connect to Swift directly.

In the 12 months to 23 September 2026, 2,628 BIC codes were registered. Growth is shown for BIC codes only: the tracked registers do not publish comparable registration dates for every institution.

Browse

Browse the directory by country, register or group

Open a country, a register or a corporate group to see its institutions, with and without a BIC. Each country page lists every BIC code registered there, as a CSV.