SEPA payment QR code generator

Give the beneficiary, the IBAN and what the payment is for, and you get the code that opens a European transfer already filled in on the payer’s banking app. The IBAN is checked before anything is encoded, and a batch of them comes back as a sheet of slips to cut. Free, no account, nothing stored.

What it does, and why it is here

An invoice asks someone to retype an IBAN — twenty-seven characters with no meaning, into a form on a phone, usually at the end of a long day. A single wrong character is either a refusal, which is annoying, or a valid account belonging to somebody else, which is worse.

The EPC069-12 standard exists to remove that step: it defines exactly what a European Payments Council QR code carries and in what order, so any compliant banking app opens a transfer with the beneficiary, the account, the amount and the reference already in place. The payer reads and confirms; nothing is typed.

Two things this tool does beyond drawing the squares. It verifies the IBAN first — country, length and check digits — because a code encoding a wrong account is worse than no code at all. And it turns a plain invoice number into a proper ISO 11649 RF reference, with its check digits, which is what lets your bank match the payment to the invoice automatically instead of by eye.

What you fill in

• Beneficiary — the name the bank holds for the account, at most 70 characters.
• IBAN — verified before anything is encoded. A wrong one is refused here rather than printed.
• Amount in euro — or leave it empty, and the payer decides. That is the right choice on a donation sign or a collection box; an invoice wants the figure.
• What it is for — the free-text line shown to the payer and carried with the transfer, at most 140 characters.
• Structured reference (RF) — your invoice number, or an RF reference you already hold. A bare number becomes a proper RF reference with its check digits; an RF reference is verified. It is exclusive with the free-text line above: the standard carries one or the other, never both.
• Purpose, optional — an ISO 20022 purpose code that some banks display and some statements carry.
• Size in pixels.
• A batch, one transfer per line — beneficiary,IBAN,amount,reference, up to 40. The PDF comes back as one A6 slip per line, and a line that does not hold up is refused by name rather than silently dropped.

What you get back

• Your payment code, ready to download and drop onto an invoice, a poster or a receipt.
• What the payer will see — the fields a banking app shows before the payer confirms, read back from the encoded payload rather than from the form. When you left the amount out, it says so in those words: left to the payer.
• The structured reference, with its check digits, and the reminder that goes with it: print it on the invoice as well. The payer’s bank carries it unchanged, and it appears on your own statement beside the payment — which is the whole point of a structured reference.
• A sheet of payment slips, when you used the batch — one A6 slip per line, laid out to cut. Membership renewals, a season’s subscriptions, a table of pledges.
• A way on to the IBAN checker, for when you want to look at an account more closely.

What it does not do

It creates nothing. No payment is initiated, no money moves, no bank is contacted: the code is a filled-in form, and the payer’s own app and their own authentication do the rest. A code cannot take money from you — it can only offer to send some.

It does not check that the account exists or that the name matches it. The check digits prove the IBAN is well formed, not that anybody banks there.

And it is euro and SEPA only. There is no equivalent standard for a transfer outside the single euro payments area, so there is nothing to encode.

What the code actually contains

The EPC payload, in order, with the limits that decide what fits.

The BIC is not required for a SEPA transfer and the tool does not ask for one. The 331-byte cap is why the free-text line is worth keeping short: it is the field that pushes the code past what a small print can hold.

Questions

Is it free? Do I need an account?

Free, no account, no limit.

Do you keep my IBAN?

No. It is verified, encoded into the image, and forgotten — not stored, not logged, not indexed.

Can someone take money from me with this code?

No. The code carries an outgoing transfer for the person who scans it, and their bank still requires their own confirmation. Publishing your IBAN on an invoice carries the same risk it always has, which is small: an IBAN allows someone to send you money, not to take it.

Why was my IBAN refused?

Because the check digits, the length or the country code did not agree. Retype it from the source rather than from memory — that refusal has just saved a printed invoice.

Do I need the BIC?

No. It has not been required for SEPA transfers for years, and the standard does not want it.

Can I use it for a direct debit, or an instant transfer?

No to the first — a direct debit is a mandate you set up with the payer, not something a code can carry. Instant transfers are decided by the payer’s bank, not by the code.

Why is there a limit on the reference text?

The payload is capped at 331 bytes and the free-text line at 140 characters. Beyond that, banks truncate what they carry — better to know here than to discover it on a statement.

Can I put several invoices on one code?

No. One code is one transfer with one reference; that is what makes reconciliation work. For many payments, use the batch and print a slip for each.

Sources and further reading

• EPC069-12 — the QR code guidelines this implements.
• IBAN — structure and the modulo 97 check.
• Creditor Reference (ISO 11649) — the RF reference and its check digits.