A Bank Identification Number (BIN) is the first 6 to 8 digits of any card number. It identifies the issuing bank, card scheme, product type and country of issue.

Is the Cardflo BIN Checker free to use?

Yes. The BIN Checker is free with no sign-up. Enter any BIN and you will see the issuer, scheme, card type and country instantly.

BIN lookups help route transactions to the best acquirer, spot high-risk card ranges, detect fraud, and confirm eligibility for local schemes such as UK debit or EU commercial cards.

Do you store the BINs I look up?

No. Lookups are stateless and are not linked to any account. Cardflo does not sell or share BIN lookup data.

Free Tool

BIN Checker. Identify any card in seconds.

Enter the first 6–8 digits of any card number to identify the issuing bank, card scheme, type, and country. Free, instant, no signup.

Only the first 6–8 digits are needed. Never enter a full card number.

Issuer & bank

See which bank issued the card and where they're based.

Scheme & type

Visa, Mastercard, Amex, credit, debit, prepaid.

Country & currency

Identify cross-border cards and local currencies.

Data sourced from public BIN databases. Lookups are informational only and may be incomplete.

A BIN, the first six or eight digits of a card number, uniquely identifies the issuing bank, card brand, product tier and country of issuance. Payment ops teams use BIN lookups every day to investigate declined authorisations, detect prepaid or corporate cards, route by geography, and spot fraud patterns.

When BIN data changes the outcome

Chargeback investigation

Match the BIN on a disputed transaction against the issuer's known fraud patterns. A US prepaid card issuing an EU chargeback is a very different story from a UK credit card doing the same, and the compelling evidence you submit should reflect that.

Dynamic routing

Some acquirers price cards by BIN family, especially commercial and premium consumer cards. Feeding BIN data into your router lets you send high-value BINs to the acquirer with the best rate on that specific card type, saving 5 to 20 basis points.

Fraud rules

Common fraud signals: a BIN issued in one country transacting from another, a prepaid BIN on a subscription signup, or a BIN family with an elevated chargeback rate. Feed the BIN into your rules engine, not just the CVV result.

Interchange forecasting

Card type drives interchange more than any other single factor. Sampling the BINs in a month of traffic tells you what share is commercial, premium consumer, prepaid or non-EEA, which is the fastest way to sanity-check whether an acquirer's quoted effective rate is realistic for your actual mix.

Wallet and 3DS behaviour

Issuer and country resolution explains a lot of unexplained friction. Some issuers challenge nearly every cross-border authentication, others accept exemptions readily. Grouping declines by BIN country and issuer usually surfaces two or three issuers responsible for a disproportionate share of the lost volume.

Support and reconciliation

When a customer says they were charged twice or cannot recognise a descriptor, the BIN confirms which bank and card product to reference in the conversation. It also helps finance match a settlement line to the right card brand when the statement is sparse.

Common questions

How many digits should I check?

The industry moved from 6-digit BINs to 8-digit BINs in April 2022. Both still work for lookups, but 8 digits gives sharper issuer resolution, especially for co-branded cards, virtual cards and cards issued by fintech BINs on top of a sponsor bank.

Can I check a full PAN?

Never send a full card number to a public BIN tool, including this one. The lookup only needs the first 6 or 8 digits. Sending more is a PCI DSS scope expansion and is against the terms of every reputable BIN service.

Where does the data come from?

Public issuer registries maintained by Visa, Mastercard, Amex, JCB, Discover and UnionPay, refreshed weekly. For prepaid, virtual and corporate flags we also correlate against acquirer-published lists, which is why our resolution is sharper on commercial BINs than most free tools.

Is there an API?

The public tool on this page is browser-only. Cardflo merchants get programmatic BIN lookups as part of the standard API, including the enriched issuer risk score that isn't available in the free version.

Does a BIN lookup tell me if a card is stolen?

No, and any tool claiming otherwise is guessing. BIN data is static reference information about the issuer, brand, product tier and country. It carries nothing about the individual account or its status. What it does give you is context for risk rules: a prepaid BIN on a high-value subscription, or an issuer country that never matches your shipping destinations, are patterns worth scoring. The authoritative answer on whether a specific card can be used comes only from the authorisation response and, where available, the issuer's fraud signals.

Why do two BIN tools return different results?

Because BIN ranges change constantly and free datasets age quickly. Issuers acquire portfolios, fintechs launch new ranges under sponsor banks, and eight-digit allocations split ranges that used to be uniform at six digits. A tool built on a stale scrape can report the sponsor bank rather than the visible brand, or an outdated country after a portfolio migration. We refresh against the scheme registries weekly and prefer eight-digit resolution, which is why co-branded and fintech-issued cards resolve more accurately here.

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