What the Card BIN/IIN Lookup does
The first digits of a payment card number are structured, and this page explains that structure: the major industry identifier, the issuer identification number in both its six-digit and eight-digit forms, the account identifier, the Luhn check digit, and which card scheme's published range the prefix falls in.
It deliberately does not name the issuing bank, and that is the honest answer rather than a missing feature. There is no free, authoritative, complete list of issuer identification numbers: the ISO register is maintained under licence, each scheme publishes only its own prefixes, and the industry's move to eight-digit IINs since 2022 has subdivided and reassigned six-digit ranges. Lists built before that change are wrong in ways that look entirely plausible.
Six digits is enough for everything this page can tell you, and everything runs in your browser.
How to use it
- Enter the first six digits of a card number - eight if you want the eight-digit IIN as well. There is no reason to paste a whole live card number here.
- Read the structure table: which digit is the industry identifier, where the IIN ends and the account identifier begins, and which digit is the Luhn check.
- Check the scheme table. More than one scheme can cover a prefix, and the page shows all of them rather than picking one it cannot justify.
- Open 'Published scheme ranges' to see the whole dated list the match came from, and the ten major industry identifier digits.
- Copy or export the breakdown if you are documenting a payment integration.
Reading the results
The first digit is the major industry identifier: 4 and 5 are banking and financial, 3 is travel and entertainment, 1 and 2 include airlines, 6 is merchandising and banking, and 9 signals a national assignment where the next three digits are an ISO 3166-1 numeric country code.
The six-digit IIN was the standard from the 1980s. Since 2022 the industry has used eight digits, so an old six-digit range may now be split between several issuers - which is precisely why a six-digit lookup table cannot be trusted to name a bank.
A prefix in no listed range means the bundled file does not carry it. Ranges are added constantly, so that is 'not in this dated list', not 'not a card'.
Multiple scheme matches are normal. RuPay co-brands into Discover and Maestro ranges, and Troy overlaps the 65 range, so the prefix alone does not decide which network a transaction will actually route over.
Worked example: reading 4111 11 as far as it can honestly be read
411111 starts with a 4, so the major industry identifier is banking and financial. The whole six digits are the IIN under the old scheme; if you supply 41111111 you also get the eight-digit IIN that the current scheme uses.
The prefix 4 falls inside Visa's published range, which runs from 4 to 4 - Visa holds the entire 4-series. Visa publishes lengths of 13, 16 and 19 digits and a three-digit CVV, both of which the page reports.
What the page will not say is which bank issued a card beginning 411111. Under the six-digit scheme that range belonged to one issuer; under the eight-digit scheme 41111100 and 41111199 can belong to different issuers in different countries. A lookup site that answers confidently is reading a table from before the change, and it will be wrong more often as time passes.
What the move to eight-digit IINs changed
Six digits allow a million issuer ranges, and the schemes were running out. The 2017 revision of ISO/IEC 7812 introduced the eight-digit IIN, and the card networks completed their migration from 2022, subdividing existing six-digit ranges among multiple issuers rather than only allocating new ones.
For anyone holding a BIN table, that is a quiet catastrophe. Nothing about a six-digit lookup breaks visibly: it still returns a bank name, it is just the wrong bank for some cards in that range. If your systems route, price or risk-score on BIN data, the only safe sources are the schemes' own current files, obtained through your acquirer, not a scraped list.
What people actually want a BIN lookup for
Usually one of three things: to display the right card logo, to tell debit from credit for surcharging or routing, or to spot a country mismatch as a fraud signal. Only the first can be done from the prefix alone, and this page does it - scheme ranges are published precisely so that a payment form can show the right icon.
The other two need issuer-level data: card product, funding source, issuing country, prepaid flag. That data exists, it is accurate, and it comes from your payment provider or the schemes under contract. If it matters enough to make a business decision on, it matters enough not to take from a free lookup of unknown age.
Limitations: what the result does not prove
- This page names the scheme, never the issuing bank. There is no free authoritative issuer register, and a confident answer from one would be a guess dressed up.
- It cannot tell you whether a card is debit or credit, prepaid or commercial, or which country issued it. That is issuer-level data available only under contract.
- The bundled range file is dated and holds schemes' own published prefixes. A prefix that is absent means absent from this list.
- A prefix in a valid range does not mean a card exists behind it, is active, or belongs to anybody in particular.
- It cannot confirm account ownership, an available balance, or that a payment will succeed.
Privacy: where your data goes
Everything you paste, type or drop is processed in this browser tab. It is not uploaded, logged, stored or sent to analytics. Session recording and tag-manager scripts are switched off on this page.
Standards and sources
- ISO/IEC 7812 - Identification cards: issuer identification numbers - checked 19 Sep 2026
- Mastercard - 2-series BIN ranges
- PCI Security Standards Council - PCI DSS
Frequently asked questions
What is a BIN number on a credit card?
BIN is the older name for the issuer identification number - the leading digits of the card number that identify the issuer. It was six digits for decades and is eight under the current standard, which is why you will see both terms used for the same thing.
What is the difference between a BIN and an IIN?
None in practice. IIN is the term ISO/IEC 7812 uses, BIN is the industry habit from when the digits identified a bank specifically. The standard's move from six to eight digits applies to both names equally.
Can I find out which bank issued a card from its BIN?
Not from any free source you should rely on. The ISO issuer register is licensed, schemes publish only their own prefixes, and the eight-digit migration has reassigned parts of old six-digit ranges. Your payment provider can give you accurate issuer data; a public lookup cannot.
What does the first digit of a card number mean?
It is the major industry identifier. 4 and 5 are banking and financial, 3 is travel and entertainment, 1 and 2 include airlines, 6 is merchandising and banking, 7 petroleum, 8 healthcare and telecoms, and 9 a national assignment whose next three digits are an ISO country code.
Why does one prefix match two card schemes?
Co-branding. RuPay issues inside Discover and Maestro ranges under a reciprocal arrangement, and Troy overlaps the 65 range. The prefix tells you the ranges a number sits in; which network a transaction routes over is decided by the terminal and the acquirer.
How many digits do I need to enter?
Six is enough for everything this page can say, and eight gives you the eight-digit IIN as well. Never paste a full live card number into a web page - the remaining digits are the account identifier and tell you nothing about the issuer.
Is it legal to store BIN data?
The first six or eight digits and the last four are generally outside the definition of a full primary account number, which is why receipts show them. The full number, the CVV and the magnetic-stripe data are governed by PCI DSS, and the CVV must never be stored after authorisation.
Can a BIN lookup tell me if a card is prepaid or commercial?
Not from published scheme ranges. Card product, funding source and country come from issuer-level files that the schemes distribute under contract. If your surcharging or routing logic depends on that distinction, get it from your acquirer rather than from a prefix.
Last reviewed by the A2Z.Tools team against the sources listed above.
