How long is a UAE IBAN?

A UAE IBAN is always exactly 23 characters: the country code AE, two IBAN check digits, a 3-digit bank code, and a 16-digit account number. The entire BBAN is numeric — no letters appear after the country code.

What is the 3-digit bank code?

The first three digits of the UAE BBAN identify the bank, assigned by the Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE). For example 033 is Emirates NBD. The remaining 16 digits are the customer's account number at that bank.

How does the MOD-97-10 checksum work?

The first four characters (AE plus the check digits) are moved to the end, every letter is converted to a two-digit number (A=10, E=14), and the resulting integer is reduced modulo 97. A structurally valid IBAN gives a remainder of exactly 1.

Does a valid result mean the account exists?

No. A pass means the IBAN is mathematically and structurally well-formed according to the SWIFT registry and ISO 13616. It cannot confirm the account is open, funded, or owned by a specific person — only the bank can do that.

Does the UAE add a national check digit?

No. The UAE relies solely on the standard IBAN MOD-97-10 checksum; there is no extra country-specific modulo check inside the BBAN. The 3-digit bank code and 23-character length are the main structural constraints.

Can a valid IBAN still send money to the wrong account?

Yes. MOD-97 catches typos — every single-character error and transposition — but it cannot detect a correctly typed IBAN that simply belongs to someone else. For high-value transfers, verify the beneficiary name through a second channel before paying.

Why does my UAE IBAN fail after copying from a bank statement?

Usually formatting: pasted IBANs carry spaces or hyphens, OCR can turn 0 into the letter O (invalid in the numeric UAE BBAN), and spreadsheets strip leading zeros from the 16-digit account section if the cell is numeric. Strip separators, check for letters after AE, and store IBANs as text.

What is the UAE IBAN Validator?

Free UAE IBAN validator. Checks the AE country code, 23-character length, the 3-digit bank code, the 16-digit account number, and the full ISO 7064 MOD-97-10 checksum. Runs entirely in your browser — nothing is uploaded. It runs free in your browser on Gera Tools, with nothing uploaded.

UAE IBAN Validator — Gera Tools

Name: UAE IBAN Validator
Creator: Gera Tools
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

The UAE IBAN Validator confirms that a United Arab Emirates bank account number in IBAN format is structurally correct. It verifies the AE country code, the 23-character length, the 3-digit bank code, the 16-digit account number, and the full ISO 7064 MOD-97-10 checksum — all without sending a single character to a server.

The Central Bank of the UAE (CBUAE) mandates IBANs for all domestic and cross-border transfers, including the UAEFTS and instant-payment rails. A fast offline validator catches typos before they cause failed transfers in invoicing, payroll, and checkout flows.

How the UAE IBAN checksum works

A UAE IBAN follows a fixed structure from the SWIFT IBAN Registry:

AE — the country code for the United Arab Emirates
kk — 2 IBAN check digits (ISO 7064 MOD-97-10)
bbb — 3-digit bank code assigned by the CBUAE
16 digits — the account number

Total: 23 characters, all digits in the BBAN.

The checksum follows ISO 13616 / ISO 7064 MOD-97-10:

Strip spaces and uppercase the string.
Move the first four characters (AE plus check digits) to the end.
Replace each letter with its 2-digit code: A = 10, E = 14.
Reduce the resulting integer modulo 97, folding progressively to avoid overflow.
The IBAN is valid if and only if the remainder equals 1.

Worked example

Take AE07 0331 2345 6789 0123 456:

Country code: AE — United Arab Emirates
Check digits: 07
Bank code: 033 (Emirates NBD)
Account: 1234567890123456

Moving AE07 to the end and expanding the letters produces a long numeric string that reduces to a MOD-97 remainder of 1, so the IBAN is structurally valid.

Field	Value	Meaning
Country	AE	United Arab Emirates
Check digits	07	MOD-97 checksum pair
Bank code	033	Emirates NBD
Account	1234567890123456	Account at that bank
Total length	23	Matches the SWIFT registry

Changing any single digit in a valid IBAN almost always produces a remainder other than 1, which is why the checksum catches the vast majority of typos. Every character is processed locally — nothing is uploaded, logged, or transmitted.

Why the checksum catches almost every typo

MOD-97-10 was chosen for the IBAN standard because 97 is the largest two-digit prime, and a prime modulus that large gives unusually strong guarantees: every single-character error and every transposition of two characters is detected — not just adjacent swaps. The probability of a random malformed string slipping through is under 1.1% (1 in 97). That is materially stronger than the modulo-10 and modulo-11 schemes used in many national account formats, and it is the reason banks worldwide could drop manual account verification steps for IBAN-based transfers.

The guarantee has a boundary worth understanding: two or more compensating errors can, rarely, produce another valid IBAN — usually a valid IBAN for a different real account. The checksum protects against typos, not against using the wrong (but correctly typed) IBAN. Always confirm the beneficiary name through a second channel for high-value transfers.

Integration notes for payment systems

Normalise before validating. Accept pasted IBANs with spaces (the standard display groups digits in fours), hyphens, and lowercase ae; strip and uppercase before running the algorithm — exactly what this tool does.
The BBAN is numeric — reject letters after position 2. Unlike many European IBANs, a UAE BBAN containing any letter is invalid. A common source is OCR reading 0 as O.
Preserve leading zeros. The 16-digit account section can begin with zeros; numeric storage silently shortens the IBAN to fewer than 23 characters. Store IBANs as strings, always.
Where you’ll need it: the UAE’s Wage Protection System (WPS) salary transfers, UAEFTS interbank payments, and cross-border SWIFT payments into the UAE all require a valid IBAN — a checkout or payroll form that pre-validates locally avoids a failed-transfer round trip that can take days to unwind.

Sources and references

SWIFT IBAN Registry — the authoritative per-country IBAN structure (AE: 23 chars, 3-digit bank code)
ISO 13616 — International Bank Account Number (IBAN) — the IBAN standard and its ISO 7064 MOD-97-10 checksum
Central Bank of the UAE — the authority that mandates IBANs and assigns UAE bank codes

Maintained by the Gera Tools editorial team. Validation follows the SWIFT registry structure and the ISO 7064 MOD-97-10 checksum (a valid IBAN yields remainder 1); a pass confirms the number is well-formed, not that the account exists. Runs entirely in your browser. Last reviewed 2026-07-02.