EPC QR Code Generator

What an EPC QR code does

An EPC QR code is a normal QR code with a payment order inside it. The European Payments Council published the format so that a banking app can read a code and open a pre-filled SEPA credit transfer. Your customer points the phone at the invoice, checks what they see, and confirms. They never touch the IBAN.

You'll see it under a few names. In Germany and Austria people say GiroCode or just "Überweisung per QR". Some invoices print "Scan to Pay" or "Zahlen mit Code" next to it. Those are all the same thing, as long as the code follows the EPC layout.

Sending the money is still a normal bank transfer. There's no payment provider in the middle, no fee from us and no account to create. The code only saves the typing.

When it's worth adding one

Invoices

If you don't have an invoice yet, build one with the invoice generator and add the downloaded code to it.

This is the main use. Freelancers and small companies put it in the corner of a PDF invoice, right next to the bank details. A customer paying from their phone gets the amount and the invoice number without any copying, which also means you get a reference you can actually match against your statement.

Membership fees and donations

Clubs, schools and charities print one on a letter or a poster. Leave the amount empty for donations, so the person giving decides how much.

Splitting a bill between friends

Send a screenshot of the code in the group chat. It's quicker than dictating your IBAN for the fifth time.

Market stalls and tradespeople

A printed code on a clipboard works when you don't want a card terminal. Set an amount per job, or leave it open and let the customer enter it.

What the fields mean

• Recipient name: required, up to 70 characters. Use the name on the account. Banks are now comparing the name with the IBAN on many transfers, so a nickname can trigger a warning for your payer.
• IBAN: required. Type it with or without spaces. The spaces get removed before the code is built, because some apps refuse a code that contains them.
• BIC: optional here. Version 002 of the format, which this tool uses, doesn't need it within the European Economic Area.
• Amount: optional, euros only. The format allows 0.01 up to 999,999,999.99.
• Reference: optional. Choose free text for up to 140 characters, or a structured RF creditor reference if your accounting software produces those. The format lets you use one or the other, never both.

What's inside the code

Less than you'd expect. A payment code is a short list of text lines in a fixed order: the letters BCD, the format version 002, the character set, the letters SCT for SEPA credit transfer, then the BIC, name, IBAN, amount, and reference. Empty fields stay as blank lines, and the whole thing can't go over 331 bytes. That's why a long name plus a long reference can hit the limit, especially with accented letters, since they take more than one byte each.

The checks it runs first

No phone nearby? Drop the PNG into our QR code scanner and it shows you the same lines of text.

I didn't want this tool to hand you a good looking code that fails at the customer's bank, so it looks for mistakes before drawing anything.

The IBAN goes through the mod 97 check digit calculation that banks use. One wrong digit gets caught almost every time, and you're told before the code is made. The length is compared with what that country uses too, so a German IBAN with 21 characters gets flagged as a missing character. An RF reference gets the same treatment.

Under the code you can read the exact text it contains. Worth a look. It's plain lines of text, and it means you don't have to trust this page: scan the code with any QR reader and you'll get the same lines back.

Will my customer's bank read it?

Mostly yes in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium and Finland, where these codes have been in use for years. Support also exists in Luxembourg, Italy and the Baltic countries, though it varies by bank. In France and Spain it's less common, and plenty of apps there still won't open one. So keep the printed IBAN on your invoice. The code is a shortcut, not a replacement.

The feature is usually tucked away in the transfer screen of the app, under something like "Scan" or "Photo transfer". The phone's own camera often just shows the text and doesn't start a payment. If a customer says the code is broken, that's the first thing to check.

Printing it so it scans

Need a code for your contact details as well? The vCard QR generator does that one, and it also runs in your browser.

Download the SVG if the code is going into a PDF or anything that will be printed. It stays sharp at any size. The PNG is 1024 pixels wide or close to it, which is fine for email and most documents.

Keep the white border around the code. It's part of the standard, and scanners use it to find the edges. Don't recolour it or put a logo on it. A black code on white paper, around 3 cm or larger on an invoice, is the safe choice.

Before you send it to anyone, scan it with your own banking app. You don't have to confirm the transfer. Just check that the name, IBAN, amount and reference look right, then cancel. That takes twenty seconds and it's the only test that really counts, because every bank app behaves a little differently.

Why your bank details stay here

Most people's first reaction to a site like this is a fair one: why would I type my IBAN into a stranger's website? So this page does the whole job with JavaScript inside your browser. There's no upload and no form submission. We count that the tool was used, as with every tool on the site, but the count has none of your details in it.

You can check that yourself. Open the Network tab in your browser's developer tools, click Generate, and look at what gets sent.

What it won't do

This only handles euro SEPA credit transfers, because that's all the EPC format covers. No pounds, no francs, no US dollars. It can't tell whether an IBAN belongs to the person you named, only whether it's correctly formed. And it can't confirm that a payment arrived, since the money moves between the banks without passing through here.