Sort code checker UK: read the bank off a six-digit code

UK Sort code checker: the verified entries

Every row on this page was read on the bank's own site; the link beside it opens the page the code was quoted from. Ordering is a printed rule, not a rating: banks with more verified identifiers first, then alphabetically. Nothing here is ranked by how good a bank is.

Using a checker without over-trusting it

Start with the first two digits. They identify the clearing bank or group rather than the branch, so a code beginning 04 is with one of the agency banks and a code beginning 20, 30 or 60 is with one of the large clearers. That is usually enough to tell whether a supplier's claimed bank is plausible.

A checker cannot confirm the account holder. The only service that matches a name to a UK account is Confirmation of Payee, which runs inside your own bank's payment screen at the moment you set up the payee. If the name does not match there, stop, whatever a sort code lookup told you.

Where a bank publishes its own details, this index quotes them. Where it does not, the entry says so rather than borrowing a figure from a licensed directory, which is why some rows here are shorter than the lookup sites you will have seen.

Questions people ask

Is there an official UK sort code checker?

There is no free official one for the public. The industry reference file is licensed, so the free checkers are either licensees or are republishing one. Your own banking app's Confirmation of Payee step is the closest thing to an authoritative check, and it runs at the moment it matters.

The checker says the branch is somewhere odd. Is the code wrong?

Probably not. Branch records lag closures and mergers, and app-based banks have divisions rather than branches, so an unexpected address is weak evidence of anything. A mismatch between the bank named and the bank your payee claims to use is the signal worth acting on.

Can I check a sort code and account number together?

Only for shape. Modulus checking confirms that the pair is arithmetically valid under the scheme's rules, which catches typos and nothing else. It cannot tell you the account exists or who owns it.