TL;DR: SEPA — the Single Euro Payments Area is a European Union payment integration initiative that standardises and simplifies bank transfers denominated in euros across 41 member countries. SEPA enables euro payments to be treated as domestic transfers regardless of whether the sending and receiving banks are in the same country, eliminating the higher fees and longer settlement times previously associated with cross-border euro payments within Europe. Three transfer types exist: SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) for standard one-business-day euro payments; SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) for euro payments settling within 10 seconds, 24/7/365; and SEPA Direct Debit (SDD) for recurring debit authorisations. A landmark regulatory development in 2025: the EU Instant Payments Regulation (EU) 2024/886 now mandates that all eurozone-based payment service providers must both receive (from January 2025) and send (from October 2025) SEPA Instant Payments at no additional charge to users compared to standard SEPA transfers.
What Is SEPA and Which Countries Are Members?
SEPA — the Single Euro Payments Area is a payment integration initiative launched by the European Union that creates a unified, borderless payment zone for euro-denominated bank transfers across its member countries. The governing principle of SEPA is that a euro transfer from a bank in Munich to a bank in Madrid should be treated identically in terms of speed, cost, and required information to a transfer between two banks within Germany or two banks within Spain. SEPA achieves this by standardising payment message formats (using the ISO 20022 standard), processing rules, settlement timelines, and consumer protection requirements across all participating institutions.
As of 2025, SEPA comprises 41 member countries: the 27 EU member states; the four EFTA members (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland); the United Kingdom (which retained SEPA membership post-Brexit); and six additional European countries including Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Albania, and Serbia (which joined in May 2025, with full SEPA transfer rollout expected by mid-2026). This geographic scope means SEPA facilitates euro payments not just within the eurozone's 20 countries, but across a broader European zone that includes major financial centres like London and Zurich. For the non-euro SEPA members UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and others SEPA applies specifically to euro-denominated transfers, while domestic transfers in the local currency continue to use national payment systems.
SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT): Standard Euro Transfers
SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) is the foundational payment scheme of the SEPA framework, enabling the one-time electronic transfer of euro funds between any two bank accounts within the SEPA zone. SCT operates on a next-business-day (T+1) settlement standard: a payment submitted before the bank's daily cutoff time on any business day must be credited to the recipient's account by the end of the following business day. In practice, many intra-SEPA transfers particularly between banks in the same country or in well-connected neighboring countries settle on the same day as initiation for payments submitted early in the processing window. SCT supports transfers up to EUR 999,999,999.99 in a single transaction, though individual banks may apply lower per-transaction limits as a matter of internal risk management policy. SCT uses IBAN (International Bank Account Number) as the sole mandatory account identifier BIC codes were made optional for intra-SEPA transfers in 2016 for consumers and businesses. By regulation, no deductions may be made from a SEPA credit transfer in transit the recipient must receive the exact amount the sender initiated.
SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst): The 2025 Revolution
SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) is the real-time payment scheme within the SEPA framework, enabling euro transfers to be processed and credited to the recipient's account within 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year including weekends and public holidays. The 2025 SCT Inst Rulebook, which entered into force on 5 October 2025, established a nine-second maximum total execution time from the moment the payer's Payment Service Provider (PSP) receives the payment instruction: the payer's PSP must receive a confirmation (positive or negative) within nine seconds, and the clearing and settlement mechanism has a seven-second hard limit from the PSP's receipt of the instruction. In practice, most SCT Inst transactions settle in five seconds or less under normal operating conditions.
Critically, the 2025 Rulebook raised the maximum transfer amount for SCT Inst to EUR 999,999,999.99 effectively removing the previous EUR 100,000 per-transaction cap that had limited SCT Inst to personal and small business use cases. While individual PSPs may still set lower customer-facing limits, this regulatory ceiling expansion enables high-value business-to-business instant payments, interbank settlements, and large commercial transactions to be processed through the instant rails rather than defaulting to next-day SCT.
The Instant Payments Regulation (EU) 2024/886: What Changed
The Instant Payments Regulation formally Regulation (EU) 2024/886 entered into force in April 2024 and represents the most significant structural reform of European payments infrastructure since SEPA's original launch. Its two most important provisions are: mandatory ubiquitous adoption and equal pricing. On adoption: from 9 January 2025, all credit institutions in the eurozone must be technically capable of receiving SEPA Instant Credit Transfers. From 9 October 2025, all credit institutions must also be capable of sending SCT Inst. Non-eurozone EEA payment institutions and e-money institutions have staggered deadlines extending to 2027 and 2028. On pricing: the Regulation explicitly prohibits PSPs from charging more for SCT Inst than for equivalent standard SCT transfers instant payment cannot be a premium-priced service; it must be available at the same cost as the standard next-day transfer. This equal-pricing mandate is transformational because it removes the economic barrier that had previously limited SCT Inst adoption among cost-sensitive consumers and small businesses who had been reluctant to pay higher fees for instant settlement.
The Regulation also introduced mandatory Confirmation of Payee a name-matching verification that checks whether the account holder name provided by the payer matches the name registered with the recipient's bank before the transfer is executed — and daily sanctions screening requirements for all SCT Inst processing institutions, designed to prevent instant payments from being exploited for fraud or sanctions evasion.
SEPA Direct Debit (SDD): Core and B2B Schemes
SEPA Direct Debit allows creditors (businesses or individuals) to collect euro payments by pulling funds directly from a debtor's bank account, based on a mandate (authorisation) previously provided by the account holder. Two SDD schemes exist: SDD Core, targeted at consumer transactions, which allows debtors to request refunds for authorised direct debit collections within eight weeks (or thirteen months for unauthorised collections); and SDD B2B, designed for business-to-business transactions, which offers faster processing and does not provide the refund right available under SDD Core making it appropriate for large commercial payments where the creditor requires greater certainty of collection finality. SDD is the mechanism behind subscription billing, utility direct debit, mortgage payments, and recurring B2B invoicing across the eurozone and broader SEPA zone. SDD mandates are portable an authorisation given to a creditor remains valid regardless of which bank account within the SEPA zone the debtor switches to, provided the debtor and creditor details remain the same.
What Information You Need for a SEPA Transfer
A SEPA Credit Transfer or SEPA Instant Credit Transfer requires the following information from the recipient: the IBAN (International Bank Account Number) — the sole mandatory identifier for intra-SEPA payments. The IBAN format is country-specific: DE (Germany) IBANs are 22 characters; FR (France) IBANs are 27 characters; GB (UK) IBANs are 22 characters; IT (Italy) IBANs are 27 characters each follows the pattern of a two-letter country code, two check digits, and the country-specific basic bank account number. The BIC/SWIFT code of the recipient's bank is no longer mandatory for intra-SEPA transfers initiated by consumers or businesses in the eurozone since February 2016, though some banks particularly for non-euro SEPA countries still request it. The recipient's full legal name is required and increasingly subject to Confirmation of Payee verification under the Instant Payments Regulation. The full intended payment amount in euros must be specified. Under the Regulation, SEPA transfers must arrive without deduction the exact initiated amount must reach the recipient regardless of how many clearing steps the payment passes through.
SEPA Transfer Fees: What Banks Can Charge
SEPA regulation requires that charges for euro cross-border payments within the SEPA zone must not exceed the charges for equivalent domestic euro payments in the sender's country. This principle established under the Cross-Border Payments Regulation (EC) 924/2009, updated by Regulation (EU) 2019/518 means that if your bank charges zero for domestic euro transfers, it cannot charge you for a SEPA transfer to another eurozone country. In practice, most banks in the eurozone offer SEPA Credit Transfers at zero cost for standard transfers, reflecting the fact that domestic euro transfers are typically free. Under the Instant Payments Regulation, from October 2025, SEPA Instant transfers must also be priced at or below the equivalent standard SEPA transfer price eliminating the premium that some banks had charged for instant settlement. For SEPA transfers from non-euro SEPA countries (UK, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway), currency conversion costs apply if the sender's account is in a non-euro currency, since SEPA itself only covers euro-denominated transfers.
SEPA Transfer Limits: SCT and SCT Inst Maximums
There is no regulatory maximum transfer amount for SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT). The theoretical ceiling is EUR 999,999,999.99 per transaction effectively unlimited for any practical commercial purpose. Individual banks apply their own customer-facing limits, typically in the range of EUR 25,000 to EUR 100,000 per transaction for online banking retail customers, with higher limits available through business banking channels and by prior arrangement. For SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst), the Rulebook ceiling was raised to EUR 999,999,999.99 from 5 October 2025, up from the previous EUR 100,000 limit. Under the Instant Payments Regulation, PSP-defined customer limits for SCT Inst cannot be set lower than the equivalent limits that institution applies to standard SCT. This means that if your bank allows standard SEPA transfers of EUR 50,000 online, it must allow SCT Inst up to the same EUR 50,000 limit.
How Long Does a SEPA Transfer Take?
SEPA Credit Transfer (SCT) settlement timeline: payments submitted before the bank's daily processing cutoff (typically between 15:00 and 17:00 CET) on a business day are processed same-day and credited to the recipient by the next business day. Many major intra-eurozone transfers, particularly between well-connected banking systems, arrive the same day they are initiated for early-morning submissions. SEPA Instant Credit Transfer (SCT Inst) settlement timeline: within 10 seconds, 24/7/365. Under the 2025 SCT Inst Rulebook, the hard limit is nine seconds from the time the originating PSP receives the payment instruction; the practical median is approximately five seconds. No banking hours, business days, weekends, or public holidays affect SCT Inst availability it processes at 03:00 on Christmas Day with the same speed and reliability as it processes at 14:00 on a Tuesday. This 24/7 availability makes SCT Inst particularly valuable for time-sensitive business payments, emergency personal transfers, and e-commerce settlement scenarios where waiting until the next business day for funds confirmation is commercially problematic.
SEPA vs. SWIFT: Which Should You Use?
The choice between SEPA and SWIFT depends on the currencies and countries involved. For any euro-denominated payment between two accounts in SEPA member countries, SEPA is unambiguously superior: it is faster (same-day to 10-second delivery vs. one to five business days for SWIFT), cheaper (zero to minimal fees vs. USD 15 to USD 50 SWIFT wire fees), more predictable (guaranteed no-deduction amount delivery vs. possible correspondent bank deductions in SWIFT), and simpler (requires only IBAN vs. SWIFT's requirement for BIC, bank name, address, and correspondent bank instructions). SWIFT should be used when sending non-euro currencies, when the recipient is in a non-SEPA country, or when institutional requirements mandate SWIFT MT103 documentation (common for property transactions and legal proceedings). For individuals and businesses sending euros within Europe, SEPA should always be the default choice over SWIFT.
SEPA for Non-Euro Countries: UK, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden
The United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Czechia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, and other non-euro SEPA members participate in the SEPA payment schemes for euro-denominated transfers, meaning they can send and receive euro SEPA payments just as eurozone countries do. However, because their domestic currencies are not euros, there are practical considerations. A UK sender making a SEPA transfer must convert GBP to EUR at their bank's exchange rate (to which the bank applies a markup) before the SEPA transfer executes. This currency conversion cost not the SEPA transfer itself, which may be zero-fee is the primary cost of UK-to-eurozone SEPA transfers. Using Wise or a specialist FX provider for this GBP-to-EUR conversion before initiating the SEPA transfer can substantially reduce this cost. Similarly, a Swiss sender converting CHF to EUR faces the same dynamic. Non-euro recipients receiving SEPA euro transfers into a local-currency account will have the bank convert EUR to their local currency at the bank's exchange rate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a SEPA transfer and which countries does it cover?
A SEPA transfer is a standardised euro bank transfer within the Single Euro Payments Area a 41-country zone that includes all 27 EU member states, the four EFTA countries (Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland), the United Kingdom, and several other European nations including Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, Vatican City, Albania, and Serbia (which joined May 2025). SEPA treats euro transfers between any two member countries as functionally equivalent to domestic transfers same speed, same cost ceiling, and same consumer protection standards regardless of which two countries are involved. SEPA covers only euro-denominated transfers; non-euro cross-border payments still use SWIFT or other cross-border mechanisms.
How long does a SEPA transfer take in 2025?
Standard SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) settle within one business da a payment submitted before the bank's daily cutoff arrives in the recipient's account by the next business day, and many intra-eurozone transfers arrive same-day for early submissions. SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst) settle within 10 seconds, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year including weekends and public holidays. From October 2025, the EU Instant Payments Regulation mandates that all eurozone-based credit institutions must both send and receive SCT Inst, and may not charge more for instant transfers than for standard SEPA transfers making 10-second settlement the effective standard for euro payments across the eurozone.
What is the maximum amount I can send via SEPA?
The regulatory maximum for both SEPA Credit Transfers (SCT) and SEPA Instant Credit Transfers (SCT Inst) is EUR 999,999,999.99 per transaction effectively unlimited for practical purposes. However, individual banks apply their own customer-facing per-transaction limits, typically EUR 25,000 to EUR 100,000 for retail online banking customers, with higher limits available for business accounts. Under the Instant Payments Regulation (2025), a bank's SCT Inst customer limits cannot be lower than its equivalent SCT limits if your bank allows EUR 50,000 standard SEPA transfers, it must allow EUR 50,000 instant SEPA transfers.
Do I need a BIC code to make a SEPA transfer?
No. For intra-SEPA transfers between eurozone countries, only the recipient's IBAN (International Bank Account Number) is legally required BIC codes have been optional for consumer and business payments since February 2016. The IBAN uniquely identifies both the receiving bank and the specific account, making the BIC redundant for SEPA routing. Some banks particularly those in non-euro SEPA countries or those with older internal systems may still request the BIC for their own processing convenience, but this is a bank-level preference rather than a SEPA regulatory requirement. Always provide the IBAN as the primary identifier and the BIC as an optional supplementary detail if requested.
Is SEPA available for transfers from the UK after Brexit?
Yes. The United Kingdom remains a SEPA member despite its withdrawal from the European Union. UK-based banks and payment institutions can send and receive SEPA euro payments to and from all 40 other SEPA member countries. The UK's continued SEPA participation was confirmed by the European Payments Council and is reflected in the 2025 SEPA member country list. One technical difference: UK banks are required to include the BIC when sending SEPA transfers, whereas eurozone senders are not this legacy requirement reflects the UK's position as a non-eurozone SEPA participant. For GBP-to-EUR transfers from the UK, the currency conversion from GBP to EUR is the primary cost driver, not the SEPA transfer fee itself using Wise, Revolut, or a specialist FX provider for this conversion is more cost-effective than converting at a UK high street bank's rate.
