Sort code

Sort codes are the domestic bank codes used to route money transfers between financial institutions in the United Kingdom, and formerly in Ireland. They are six-digit hierarchical numerical addresses that specify clearing banks, clearing systems, regions, large financial institutions, groups of financial institutions and ultimately resolve to individual branches. In the UK they continue to be used to route transactions domestically within clearance organizations and to identify accounts, while in Ireland they have been deprecated and replaced by the Single Euro Payments Area systems and infrastructure.
The sort code is usually formatted as three pairs of numbers, for example 12-34-56. It identifies both the bank and the branch where the account is held. Sort codes are encoded into International Bank Account Numbers but are not encoded into Business Identifier Codes.
Sort codes for Northern Ireland branches of banks were registered with the Irish Payment Services Organization for both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. These codes are used in the British clearing system and historically in the Irish system.

History

Codes began to be used in the early 20th century to facilitate the manual processing of cheques. Known as a 'national code', these had between three and five digits.
The eleven London clearing banks were each allocated a main number, with the "big five" allocated single-digit numbers alphabetically. Lloyds Bank, for example, was allocated 3 and National Provincial was allocated 5. The remaining single digit codes were used to indicate that a cheque was from outside the London clearing system. The smaller clearing banks were allocated two-digit numbers, for example Martins Bank was allocated 11.
The bank branches were allocated further digits by their bank to make up the entire number; some banks represented these on cheques in smaller type. Main clearing branches would have only one digit after the main number, e.g. 111. Metropolitan branches had two digits after the main number, e.g. 1124. Country branches made up the rest of the country, and used three or more digits after the main number, e.g. 11056. They were displayed on cheques in this fashion, with the bank identifier taking precedence.
Six-digit "sorting codes" were introduced in a staggered process from 1957 as the banking industry moved towards automation. The national codes were retained, but where a single digit was used to identify the bank a two-digit range was introduced. So, for example, Barclays codes went from starting with a 2 to 20, Midland from 4 to 40, etc.

Code	Bank
1	Bank of England
2	Barclays
3	Lloyds Bank
4	Midland Bank
5	National Provincial
6	Westminster Bank
7	Walks
8	Scottish clearing
9	Irish clearing
11	Martins Bank
15	Glyn, Mills & Company
16	Williams Deacon's Bank
17	National Bank
18	Coutts

List of sort codes of the United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom the initial digits of bank sort codes were originally allocated to settlement members of the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company and the Belfast Bankers' Clearing Company. Today, sort codes are issued to any organisation that will be a direct member of a UK electronic payment network. Non-standard sort codes are issued to payment service providers who need an IBAN, for example for SEPA, as the sort code forms part of this.
The allocation of sort codes is managed by Bacs. These numbers are six digits long, formatted as three pairs separated by hyphens.

Cheque clearing

The cheque clearing system in the United Kingdom is managed by Pay.UK, following the merger of the Cheque and Credit Clearing Company, Bacs and Faster Payments Ltd in 2018. Since August 2019, sterling cheque clearing has been through the Image Clearing System.

England and Wales

In the following list the dates in brackets give the year of merger with the present-day sort code holder, or its subsidiary.

Range	Bank	Note
`00`	For IBAN use only
`01`	NatWest	Formerly District Bank
`04`	"Utility bank"	04 is used by a large number of new financial institutions. Issued to new participants in the BACS, CHAPS and Faster Payments schemes. Not usable for cheques. See next table.
`05`	Clydesdale Bank	Trading as Yorkshire Bank
`07-00` to `07-49`	Nationwide Building Society
`08`	The Co-operative Bank
`08-60` to `08-61`	The Co-operative Bank	For building societies `08-60-64` for Virgin Money
`08-90` to `08-99`	The Co-operative Bank
`08-30` to `08-39`	Citibank	`08-31` to `08-32` for UK Government banking
`09-00` to `09-19`	Santander UK	Formerly Abbey National
`09-00` to `09-19`	Santander UK	`09-01-31` to `09-01-36` `09-01-39` to `09-01-49` for Alliance & Leicester `09-01-51` to `09-01-56` migrated accounts
`10-00` to `10-79`	Bank of England	Previously used for government banking and BoE employee accounts
`11`	Bank of Scotland	For Halifax, earlier used by Martins Bank
`12-00` to `12-69`	Bank of Scotland	For Sainsbury's Bank
`13`	Barclays
`14`	Barclays
`15`	Royal Bank of Scotland	Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank, itself formerly Glyn, Mills & Company
`15-80`	Royal Bank of Scotland	For Child & Company private bank, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland
`15-98` to `15-99`	Royal Bank of Scotland	For C. Hoare & Co, independent private bank
`16`	Royal Bank of Scotland	Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank, itself formerly Williams Deacon's Bank `16-00-38` for Drummonds Bank, part of The Royal Bank of Scotland `16-52-21` for the Cumberland Building Society `16-57-10` for Cater Allen Private Bank, part of Santander Group
`17`	Royal Bank of Scotland	Formerly Williams & Glyn's Bank, itself formerly The National Bank
`18`	Royal Bank of Scotland	For Coutts, a subsidiary of NatWest
`19`	Royal Bank of Scotland
`20` to `29`	Barclays	`20-11-47` for HMRC `23-00-88` for VFX Financial `23-05-05` for Stripe `23-05-80` for Metro Bank `23-14-70` for Wise `23-22-21` for Fire Financial Services `23-32-72` for Pockit `23-59-54` for Newcastle Building Society `23-69-72` for Prepay Technologies `23-73-24` for Loot Financial Services
`30` to `39`	Lloyds Bank and TSB	Formerly Lloyds TSB and earlier for Lloyds Bank `30-00-66`for Arbuthnot Latham Private Bank `30-00-83`for Al Rayan Bank `30-02-48`for FinecoBank UK
`40` to `49`	HSBC UK	Formerly Midland Bank `49-99-79` to `49-99-99` for Deutsche Bank `40-12-50` to `40-12-55` for M&S Bank `40-47-58` to `40-47-87` for First Direct `40-51-78` for Jyske Bank Gibraltar `40-51-98` for Turkish Bank UK `40-60-80` for CashFlows `40-63-01` for the Coventry Building Society `40-63-77` for Cynergy Bank Limited `40-64-05` to `40-64-16` for Tesco Bank `40-64-25` for Virgin Money `40-64-37` for Marcus
`50` to `59`	NatWest	Formerly National Provincial Bank
`60` to `66`	NatWest	Formerly Westminster Bank `60-01-73` for Reliance Bank Limited `60-83-12` for Atom Bank `60-83-14` for Gibraltar International Bank `60-83-66` for Fidor Bank UK `60-83-71` for Starling Bank `60-84-00` for Zopa `60-84-07` for Chase UK `60-93-03` for Weatherbys Bank Limited `60-95-34` for Handelsbanken UK personal accounts
`70`	Used by various international banks for their UK business: no longer issued.	Banks including: Bank of Baroda National Bank of Pakistan Close Brothers Group Bank Hapoalim
`71`	Bank of England	National Savings Bank
`72`	Santander UK	Formerly Alliance & Leicester, itself formerly Girobank
`77-00` to `77-44`	Lloyds Bank and TSB	Formerly Lloyds TSB and earlier for Trustee Savings Bank
`77-46` to `77-99`	Lloyds Bank and TSB	Formerly Lloyds TSB and earlier for Trustee Savings Bank