IBAN, or international bank account number, is an international standard between banks to help doing cross border transactions easier. It allows banks to identify accounts in other countries with less complication. An IBAN is made up of 27 characters for Europe, and up to 34 in other countries. It is internationally recognized, but this system was designed and primarily used within Europe.

The United States does not participate in this system, so if you have an account in the United States, you will not have an IBAN. To get this number from an international bank, all you have to do is ask them. Sometimes it is simple to look up online as well.

The characters that make up an IBAN follows some very strict rules. In fact, if you have the format for which they follow, you can find out what all of those numbers really mean. XE has a decoder tool that lets you do just that. It’s no secret, but it’s a handy tool to let you know what the IBAN number really means.

It is ISO 13616 standard that spells out the proper IBAN structure. This document is available online as well through ISO.org. To get a national IBAN format registration for a particular country, it must be submitted by a national standards body or a central bank. There are records kept that detail the specs of IBAN formats of countries that follow the ISO 13616 standard, and it is available online as well.

IBANs usually follow a format such as this: IBAN GB20 LOYD 3292 1722 1267 22. This format will vary from country to country. Sometimes the length of it will differ as well depending on which country it is.

It is quite a complicated system for someone looking on the outside, but in practice it makes business transactions a lot smoother and easier to organize when you need to send an international wire transfer.