Card Issuer Lookup

Enter the first 6 to 11 digits of a card number to identify the bank that issued it, along with the country, funding type, and card level:

Enter BIN:Lookup

Do not enter a full card number. Six to eleven digits is all that is needed, and all the API accepts.

A card number is not arbitrary. Its leading digits are the issuer identifier — the IIN, more commonly called the BIN — allocated by the card network to the issuing institution. The digits after it identify the individual account and are meaningless for identifying the bank.

So the first 8 digits answer "which bank issued this?" completely, and the remaining digits add nothing. This is why a well-built integration truncates the card number before making the request.

Six digits used to be enough. Since the networks subdivided their ranges, roughly 6.6% of ranges resolve to a different institution, country, or funding type at 8 digits than at 6 — so a 6-digit lookup can confidently name the wrong bank. Send 8 where you have them.

These get used interchangeably and they are four different parties. Only one of them is derivable from a card number.

Party	Role	From the card number?
Issuer	The bank that issued the card to the cardholder and carries the credit risk. Authorises or declines transactions.	Yes — this is what a BIN lookup returns
Network	Visa, Mastercard, Amex, and others. Operates the rails and sets the rules.	Yes — determined by the prefix range
Acquirer	The bank holding the merchant's account, which receives the funds.	No — a property of the merchant, not the card
Processor	The technical intermediary moving authorisation messages.	No

Issuer name and country are present on the large majority of records — 94.1% carry an issuer name. Website and phone coverage is thinner. Missing fields return null.

Co-branded and white-label programmes are the norm rather than the exception. A card carrying a retailer's or airline's branding is issued by a bank behind the programme, and the same fintech-branded card can sit on different issuing banks in different markets.

BIN data returns the licensed issuer of record. That is the party that authorises transactions and handles disputes, so it is the one you want for routing and chargeback purposes — even when it is not the name the cardholder would recognise.

• Dispute and chargeback routing — identify which issuer to correspond with
• Customer support — tell a cardholder which bank to call, with the number where held
• Fraud rules — compare issuer country against billing, shipping, and IP geolocation
• Payment routing — route on funding type and issuing region rather than guessing
• B2B logic — detect commercial cards to trigger Level 2/3 data handling
• Checkout UX — show the right card icon and validate expected number length as the user types

Worked examples with BIN ranges verified against the dataset:

How do I find out which bank issued a credit card?

Take the first 6 to 11 digits of the card number and look them up. Those digits are the issuer identifier, and they resolve to the institution that issued the card. Enter them in the tool on this page — you do not need, and should not send, the full card number.

How many digits do I need to identify the issuer?

Six is the minimum but is no longer reliable on its own: around 6.6% of ranges resolve to a different issuer at 8 digits than at 6. Eight is the current standard. Our API accepts up to 11 for the most specific match.

Is it safe to enter a card number to find the issuer?

Enter only the first 6 to 11 digits — never the full number. Our API rejects anything longer than 11 digits and replaces it with [REDACTED] rather than logging it. Truncating before the value leaves your system keeps full card numbers out of third-party logs entirely.

What is the difference between the issuer and the acquirer?

The issuer is the bank that gave the card to the cardholder and carries the credit risk. The acquirer is the bank that holds the merchant's account and receives the funds. BIN data identifies the issuer — the acquirer is not derivable from a card number.

Can I get the issuing bank phone number?

Where we hold it, yes — records include the issuer website and customer service phone number alongside the name. Coverage of these two fields is partial, and the API returns null rather than a guess where they are missing.

Why does the issuer name look different from the brand on the card?

Co-branded and white-label cards are extremely common. The name on the plastic is often a retailer, airline, or fintech, while the issuing institution is a bank behind it. BIN data returns the licensed issuer of record, which is the one that matters for routing and disputes.