To transfer money using an IBAN and SWIFT code, log in to your bank’s international wire section, enter the recipient’s IBAN (their account number) and the recipient bank’s SWIFT/BIC (the bank’s global identifier), add the recipient’s full legal name and address exactly as their bank has them, choose who pays the fees, and confirm with the one-time code your bank sends you. The two numbers work as a pair: the SWIFT code routes the payment to the right bank, and the IBAN points to the right account inside it.
What the Two Numbers Do
An IBAN can run up to 34 characters and always starts with a two-letter country code, then two check digits, then the domestic account number. Those check digits are not decoration. Your bank runs a mathematical validation on them before the money leaves your account, which catches most typos at the form stage rather than after the transfer is in flight.
A SWIFT code, formally a Business Identifier Code (BIC), is eight characters and identifies the bank, country, and city.1Swift. Business Identifier Code (BIC) An optional three-character suffix extends it to eleven when a specific branch needs to be pinpointed. If the SWIFT code is the bank’s address, the IBAN is the apartment number inside the building.
Not Every Country Uses IBAN
Before you start filling out anything, check whether the destination country actually issues IBANs. IBAN is standard across Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Africa and South America, but the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa do not use it. Sending to a U.S. bank means using the ABA routing number and the account number; sending to Canada means using a Canadian payment routing number. Every country connected to the SWIFT network still uses SWIFT codes, so the BIC is always required even when no IBAN exists. If your bank’s transfer form has a mandatory IBAN field and the destination doesn’t issue one, call the bank rather than invent something that fits the character count.
What to Collect Before You Start
Hunting for details mid-submission is how mistakes happen. Get everything in one place first:
- The recipient’s IBAN or, for non-IBAN countries, their account number and domestic routing number. Ask them to copy it directly from their online banking or a statement rather than write it out.
- The recipient bank’s SWIFT/BIC code, also visible in the recipient’s online banking or on their statement.
- The recipient’s full legal name, matching their bank records exactly. A nickname or shortened form can trigger compliance flags during automated screening.
- The recipient’s physical address. U.S. anti-money-laundering rules under the Bank Secrecy Act require your bank to collect and transmit address information for transfers of $3,000 or more, and an incomplete address often leads to the payment being held for manual review.2FFIEC BSA/AML Manual. Assessing Compliance with BSA Regulatory Requirements – Funds Transfers Recordkeeping
- The recipient bank’s full legal name and address. Not a local abbreviation. Some banks also ask for a purpose-of-payment code explaining why the funds are crossing borders.
The BSA’s Travel Rule requires financial institutions to pass along the sender’s name, address, and account number with every transfer of $3,000 or more.3Financial Crimes Enforcement Network. FinCEN Advisory Issue 7 – Funds Travel Regulations: Questions and Answers Banks cannot process the transfer without this information and cannot substitute their own address for yours. For larger amounts, your bank’s compliance team may ask for supporting documents such as an invoice or contract, particularly where the payment relates to trade or investment.
Submitting the Transfer
Most banks handle international wires through a dedicated section of their online portal, usually labeled “International Wire” or “Global Payments.” This is separate from the domestic transfer option. Picking the wrong one is a common early mistake, so look for the international-specific path before entering anything.
After you enter the recipient’s details, the system shows a summary with the exchange rate, the fees, and the total debit. Read it before confirming. Your bank will then require a second verification step, typically a one-time code sent to your phone or email that expires quickly, so have your device ready. If you’d rather do this in person, bring a government photo ID to a branch and a banker will process it through the internal wire system.
Choosing Who Pays the Fees
The form will ask who bears the transfer fees. The field uses three standard codes that appear on the underlying SWIFT message:
- OUR: you pay all fees, and the recipient gets the full amount.
- SHA (shared): you pay your bank’s outgoing fee, and the recipient absorbs any charges from intermediary or receiving banks. This often means they receive slightly less than expected.
- BEN (beneficiary): the recipient pays all fees, deducted from the transfer amount before it arrives.
If the recipient needs an exact amount to land, choose OUR. Shared is the default at many banks and is the most common source of complaints from recipients who expected the full sum. Even with OUR selected, an intermediary bank may occasionally still deduct a small processing charge, though this happens less often than it used to.
The Exchange Rate Markup
The flat wire fee is only part of what you actually pay. Banks routinely add 2 to 5 percent above the mid-market rate when converting currency. On a $5,000 transfer, a 3 percent markup is $150, often more than the wire fee itself. The rate on your bank’s summary screen already includes this markup, which is why it will always be worse than the rate you see on a financial news site. Online transfer services and fintech platforms usually offer tighter spreads, worth comparing if you send money abroad regularly.
How Long It Takes
SWIFT’s own figures show roughly 90 percent of payments reach the destination bank within an hour, but only about 43 percent are credited to the end customer’s account in that time.4Swift. How Long Do Swift Transfers Take? The gap comes from local regulations at the receiving end, manual compliance checks, and time-zone differences.
The biggest variable is whether the sending and receiving banks deal with each other directly. If they don’t, the payment passes through one or more correspondent banks, and each one processes and clears it independently. Transfers between well-connected financial centers move faster than those routed through several intermediaries to smaller markets. Plan on same-day to three business days for major corridors, and up to five days for less common routes or when a compliance review is triggered.
Tracking the Payment
Your bank assigns a transaction reference when you submit. Behind the scenes, the payment instruction is formatted as an MT103 message, which is the standard proof-of-payment document in international banking. You can request a copy from your bank, and it lists the full route, every bank identifier, and any fees deducted along the way. If the recipient’s bank cannot find the funds, the MT103 reference is what lets both sides trace the payment.
SWIFT gpi adds end-to-end tracking through a Unique End-to-End Transaction Reference.5Swift. Swift GPI Your online activity log may show statuses such as Processing, Sent, or Completed. If the money hasn’t arrived after five business days, contact your bank with the MT103 reference and ask them to open a formal trace, which identifies exactly which institution in the chain is holding it.
Canceling or Disputing the Transfer
Federal law gives you a narrow but powerful window. Under Regulation E, you can cancel a remittance transfer for a full refund within 30 minutes of payment, as long as the funds have not already been picked up or deposited by the recipient.6eCFR. 12 CFR 1005.34 Procedures for Cancellation and Refund of Remittance Transfers The provider must issue the refund at no additional cost within three business days of getting your request.
This rule covers bank wire transfers to foreign countries, not just money transmitters. The regulatory definition of a remittance transfer explicitly includes consumer wire transfers where a bank executes a payment order to send money to a designated recipient abroad.7Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. 12 CFR 1005.30 Remittance Transfer Definitions Banks that process more than 500 remittance transfers a year are covered, which sweeps in nearly every major U.S. bank.
You also have 180 days to dispute errors, including incorrect amounts, failure to deliver, or fees that weren’t properly disclosed. Contact your bank in writing and reference the specific transaction. The bank cannot charge you for investigating.
Guarding Against Wire Fraud
Wire transfers are essentially irreversible once the recipient collects the money. The FTC puts it plainly: wiring money is like sending cash, and once it’s gone, you usually can’t get it back.8Consumer Advice (FTC). What To Know Before You Wire Money International wires are especially attractive to scammers because the money crosses borders quickly and becomes hard to recover.
Most schemes turn on social engineering. Someone impersonates a vendor, employer, romantic contact, or government official and creates urgency to push you into sending before you check. Business email compromise is a common variant: a scammer takes over a legitimate email account and sends what looks like a routine payment instruction with new bank details. Always verify wire instructions through a separate channel, such as a phone call to a number you already have, before sending anything.
If you realize you’ve been scammed, call your bank immediately and ask for a wire recall. Speed matters. If the funds haven’t been credited yet, a recall has a real chance of succeeding. Once the money is drawn on the other end, recovery is unlikely. File complaints with the FTC and your bank in either case, since those reports help track fraud patterns.