PostFinance and the QR-bill: the QR generator, the structured address and the date of 13 November 2026

The quotes below come from PostFinance's English page on these changes and from its factsheets 460.445 “Changes to QR-bills” and 460.450 “Adjustments to addresses in payment orders” (10.2025), read on 10 November 2026. A QR-bill goes through two banks, the issuer's and the payer's: when the payer is a PostFinance customer, it is PostFinance that decides until when it accepts the old format.

In its FAQ, PostFinance writes about financial institutions in general that their ability to process QR-bills with a combined address is ensured “up to mid-November 2026”. Some banks set an earlier date, such as UBS (see UBS and the QR-bill). The dates of other banks are on our page QR-bill dates bank by bank; Raiffeisen gave no date on its QR-bill page when we read it on 11 November 2026: Raiffeisen and the QR-bill.

1. Check which type the QR-bill is. The free QR-bill checker reads the QR code (camera, photo or PDF) and shows S or K, without sending anything.

2. If it is K: 13 November 2026 is the last day for which PostFinance guarantees its processing on all channels. After that date, it may be refused; the refusal then very probably comes from the old format, not from your account, and the issuer has to send you a new QR-bill in the structured format (type S), for the same amount. If a type K invoice is still open, the simplest is to ask the issuer for a new invoice now (our advice, not PostFinance's).

3. If it is S and the payment is refused, the cause probably lies elsewhere (also check line 21: if the payer's address is filled in, it must read S). Under the SIX rules, a bank does not process a payment part whose IBAN and reference do not match (a QR-IBAN goes only with a 27-digit QR reference; see the QR-IBAN guide), nor one whose creditor address has no postcode or town.

4. The page and factsheets read describe no PostFinance procedure for paying an old QR code after 13 November 2026: do not insist with the same invoice. If in doubt, contact PostFinance.

PostFinance asks that your QR-bills contain only structured addresses (type S): “both your own address (you as the invoice issuer) and the address of the debtor”, the recipient of the QR-bill. If the name is filled in, the town, the postcode and the country must also be filled in.

For the debtor's address, PostFinance recommends also filling in the street and the house number: if they are missing and the QR-bill is paid at a Swiss Post branch, the missing information is entered afterwards, “with the costs payable by you” (factsheet 460.445, addressed to the issuer). PostFinance recommends putting the street and the number in the fields provided; until further notice, the house number may stay in the street element.

The extended character set is now allowed in the QR-bill (for example ș, ț or €). PostFinance also offers a test platform for businesses. The typical problem cases are a Word or Excel template or old accounting software (these examples are ours, not PostFinance's): do the line-5 test on a recent invoice.

PostFinance has a “QR generator” on its website, to “generate a QR-bill quickly and easily in just a few steps”: it produces the payment part with the QR code and the receipt. When we opened the French version on 9 November 2026, it took four steps (beneficiary, payment, payer, summary), opened without logging in, and asked for the beneficiary's address in separate fields (postcode, town, street, number), so in the structured format. On 10 November 2026, PostFinance's page showed the service as temporarily unavailable. For payment at a post office branch, PostFinance writes that the QR-bill “must be printed on white, perforated paper” (see printing a QR-bill).

The PostFinance QR generator and Fele-facture are two separate tools. Both make the payment part only; the invoice itself (services, VAT, number) still has to be written separately. Fele-facture's free generator also works without signing up, with a PostFinance IBAN as with any Swiss IBAN. For the whole invoice with its QR-bill, by voice or from a photo of a work report, that is the role of the Fele-facture app, from the Independent plan (CHF 15 a month).

Scan the QR code of the invoice with an app that shows the text of the code (not a bank's app). The text starts with “SPC”, “0200”, “1”, then the IBAN. Line 5 is a single letter: S, structured address, the invoice is compliant; K, combined address, the old format, the payment part has to be redone. If the payer's address is in the QR code, line 21 gives its address type and must also read S; if it is empty, the payment part carries no payer address, which is allowed.

Fele-facture's checker does this test for you, in the browser, without sending or storing anything.

This section is about payment orders that businesses send to PostFinance (pain.001 files sent from software, but also standing orders and payment templates, which the factsheet asks you to modify), not about paying a QR-bill. It follows factsheet 460.450 (10.2025) and the page “Important changes and action required”, which do not say quite the same thing.

Fele-facture QR-bills carry address type S in line 5: the library that builds the QR code (swissqrbill) writes no other type. They are therefore in the structured format (type S) that PostFinance describes. Your street and number are written together in the street line, which PostFinance and SIX allow until further notice; the postcode and the town each have their own line.

The customer's address only goes into the QR code if their name, postcode and town are known; their street and number are included when they are given for that customer on the invoice, written together in the street line. Otherwise, the “Payable by” box stays empty and the customer fills it in: the app does not invent an address. The QR payment part is included from the Independent plan (CHF 15/month) or during the 14-day trial; the Free plan produces invoices without a QR payment part.

The free QR payment slip generator, without an account, uses the same library and also produces type S.

Fele-facture also has a product datasheet on PostFinance's test platform (link in the sources below); this is not a certification or a recommendation by PostFinance. There is no direct interface between Fele-facture and PostFinance: the app creates the QR-bill, and your customers pay it with their own bank.