QR-bill rejected? The structured address, the dates bank by bank and the test that settles it

A QR-bill goes through two banks: the bank of the issuer, which receives the money, and the bank of the customer, which executes the payment. For an old QR-bill with an unstructured address, it is the bank of the person who pays that decides until when it accepts it. SIX states that each bank may offer options outside the Swiss Payment Standards, including the unstructured address: hence the different dates from one bank to another.

The table lists the banks whose page we read on 6 or 7 October 2026; BLKB, ZKB and BCGE have changed their page since, were read again on 24 October 2026 and no longer give a date. A bank that is not listed was not checked, or already gave no date. Raiffeisen, for example, gives no end date on its page “QR-facture pour les entreprises” (link in the Sources section). For UBS, a dedicated page sets out word for word what the bank writes: UBS and the QR-bill (in French); likewise for PostFinance: PostFinance and the QR-bill (in French).

How to read it: what counts is the bank of your customer, the person who pays. Your own bank makes no difference to the date from which your customer can no longer pay an old QR-bill.

The quickest way: the free checker (in French) reads the QR code on your invoice (camera, photo or PDF) and tells you whether the address is type S or K, without sending anything. By hand, here is the test.

Open an app that shows the text of a QR code (many phone cameras do this; otherwise, any QR code reader app), not your bank's app. Scan the QR code of one of your invoices, on screen or on paper.

The text shown always starts with “SPC”, then “0200”, then “1”, then your IBAN. The 5th line is a single letter. S: structured address, the invoice complies. K: combined address, the old format; the payment slip has to be redone.

If your customer's address is in the QR code, the 21st line gives its address type and must also be S. If that line is empty, the payment slip simply carries no payer address, which is allowed.

For an official check, SIX provides a QR-bill validation portal: validation.iso-payments.ch/gp/qrrechnung (you need to create an account; interface in German and English).

1. Do the 5th-line test on a recent invoice. An old template, a macro or a QR code copied from an old invoice often gives K.

2. If the 5th line is K, stop reusing the QR code image pasted into your template: you need to generate a new payment slip, the old one cannot be corrected. The same goes for a stock of pre-printed payment slips: our guide to perforated paper (in French) explains what to do with them and where to buy blank paper.

3. Enter your own address in separate fields: street (the number may stay with the street), postcode, town, country. The postcode and the town are mandatory.

4. The same rule applies to your customer's address. If you do not know it in full, leave it out of the QR code: an incomplete payer address is not allowed, an empty “Payable by (name/address)” box is.

5. Generate the payment slip with an up-to-date tool: our QR payment slip generator, free and without an account, produces type S.

6. Repeat the 5th-line test on the new PDF before sending it.

7. For invoices sent in advance (rent, leasing, payments on account), send a new payment slip to the customers concerned: SIX recommends it, and the amount does not change.

Fele-facture QR-bills carry address type S in the 5th line: the library that builds the QR code (swissqrbill) writes no other type. The free QR payment slip generator, without an account, uses the same library.

Your address: the street and the number are written together in the street line (7th line); the number line (8th) stays empty, which the SIX rules allow for the time being. The postcode and the town each have their own line. The country is CH, or LI for a Liechtenstein IBAN. Without a postcode or a town in your profile, the app does not generate a QR code: the IBAN is still printed in plain text on the invoice.

The customer's address only goes into the QR code if their name, postcode and town are known. Otherwise, the “Payable by (name/address)” box stays empty and the customer fills it in themselves: the app does not invent an address.

When you dictate an invoice or photograph a work order, the app puts the customer's address into three separate fields: street and number, postcode, town. Only common Latin characters are kept: others are removed (including ș, ț and €, even though they have been allowed in the QR-bill since November 2025), and each line is cut to the maximum length allowed.

A limit to be aware of: the house number does not have its own line. If SIX withdrew this tolerance, the app would have to be adapted. The QR payment slip is included from the Independent plan (CHF 15/month); the Free plan produces invoices without a QR payment slip.