All that was left for me to be fully registered with Apple to receive money was to enter my bank account into iTunes Connect. However iTunes Connect refused to accept my IBAN, telling me it’s invalid. Since i’ve opened a new bank account on the same day i thought it was simply because my account was so brand new.
But as a matter of fact, other people seem to have the very same problem. After researching it a bit more i found nothing but cryptic comments, the best was that it could be resolved by adding missing zeros. So i tried all kinds of things with my IBAN without any luck, thinking it may simply not appreciate my german IBAN for some reason. But iTunes Connect was persistant that my IBAN is invalid even though IBAN checking programs all concluded that the IBAN is correct for my country, and i got the IBAN from the IBAN calculator of my bank. So what was going on here?
The answer is simple: the IBAN is indeed correct but the bank account number i entered was missing the leading zeros that do appear in the IBAN!
So, for example if your Bank Account number is 123456 then the IBAN for a german bank account will look something like this: DE60 55599900 0000123456
Since german bank account numbers can have up to 10 digits, those 10 digits are reserved in the IBAN and filled with leading zeros if your bank account number has less than 10 digits. In this example case, what you have to do in order for iTunes Connect to accept your bank account & IBAN number, is to enter your bank account number with the correct amount of leading zeros! It’s not the IBAN that is incorrect, it’s the bank account number!
In this example you would simply have to enter 0000123456 as your bank account number instead of just 123456 in order for iTunes Connect to accept your IBAN. The message that the IBAN is invalid is misleading because it’s actually your bank account number missing the leading zeros that appear in the IBAN.
I hope this helps people who have the same issue with iTunes Connect. Please leave me a comment and place a link if you had the same problem, i suspect there are many with that exact issue. It’s not limited to german IBANs by the way, other countries just have longer or shorter IBANs and in turn a different maximum of digits that can appear in a bank account number. You can look up how the IBAN for your country should look like on Wikipedia.
Auf deutsch: falls iTunes Connect deine IBAN nicht akzeptiert und meint, sie sei ungültig, dann liegt das womöglich an fehlenden, führenden Nullen vor der Bankkonto Nummer! Es ist also nicht die IBAN die nicht korrekt ist, sondern die Kontonummer der Bank muss im Eingabefeld mit führenden Nullen eingetragen werden, so das sie exakt 10 Stellen aufweist (für ein deutsches Bankkonto).
Also, nicht iTunes Connect glauben das die IBAN fehlerhaft oder inkorrekt sei, sondern die Bankkonto Nummer überprüfen ob sie tatsächlich 10 Stellen hat, und wenn sie weniger als 10 Stellen hat diese mit führenden Nullen auffüllen, z.b. so: 0000123456
Und bevor jemand frägt: ja, das ist korrekt. Man kann seine Bankkonto Nummer überall so schreiben wenn man das möchte. Nur normalerweise lässt man die führenden Nullen der Einfachheit halber weg, deswegen ist es den wenigsten bekannt das dies funktioniert. Entsprechend oft scheinen Apple Entwickler bei der Eingabe der Bankverbindung auf iTunes Connect genau auf dieses Problem zu stossen.
Bitte hinterlasst mir eine Nachricht und verlinkt diese Seite wenn euch das geholfen hat. Das würde mich freuen!
Hi And Welcome!
Danke. Ich bin fast wahnsinnig geworden, weil die IBAN immer als ‘invalid’ durchging.
Daniel
Ich wär auch fast dran verzweifelt. Schön das ich helfen konnte.
Danke! und da soll man drauf kommen…
Jo, bei mir hats eben auch ein paar Tage gebraucht bis es “klick” gemacht hat.
WOW, Danke !
Echt ‘nen komischer bug. und sollte apple definitief in die info-box schreiben.
Gruesse aus holland !
[...] Deze staan op je bankafschriften of kun je opzoeken bij je bankgegevens. Apple zegt zelf – en anders staat het ook hier – dat je jouw rekeningnummer in de IBAN met voorloop nullen moet opvullen tot 10 cijfers. Dus [...]
Danke für den Artikel. Hat mir echt weiter geholfen.
Danke für den Tipp mit den führenden Nullen vor der Kontonummer.
Hallo zusammen,
ich hab ein ähnliches Problem. Die Kontonummer ist von Haus aus 7stellig. Wenn ich drei nullen davor stelle gibt er mir folgende Meldung:
The bank account number you entered does not match the corresponding portion of your IBAN. Remember to include any leading zeros in your bank account number, and try again.
Hat jemand ne Ahnung was ich machen soll?
Regards for that advice, are actually looking several nights due to this.
Hello,
I have provided my German Bank Account Number (10 Digits) und the correct IBAN, iTunes says: Please enter a valid IBAN.
I am sure both infos are correct!!!
What can I Do??
.. cool. The info from my bank was not correct: Germany starts with DE 16 … not DE 43… Great!
I live in england and had the same problem.
For me the solution was to make sure i typed the alpha chars of the iban in CAPITAL LETTERS! I didn’t need to pad the account number with 0′s.
i.e gb22nwbk……… will not work.
GB22NWBK…………. does however.
Hope this helps someone.
cheers
Chris
hi Stefan, danke sehr für deine Hilfe, die kommt rechtzeitig…habe noch eine Frage, wie seht es aus mit der Tax Information aus? mus man die auch beeintragen?
Natürlich, sonst kann Apple wahrscheinlich kein Geld auszahlen bzw. erlaubt es erst gar nicht, kostenpflichtige Apps einzustellen.
Thanks very much, that was so helpful!
Hello,
I have a question, my bank account is more than 10 digits, it’s 12 digits.
And my IBAN is just BE60 and my bank account number, so what do I have to do?
I am from Belgium.
Thanks in advance, can you maybe email me the answer?
constantintuyishime@me.com
[...] because I don’t now that much about bank accounts, but it seems that a lot of people have the same [...]
For Montenegro, after choosing the bank from the list actually we are not required to put the whole IBAN but only the last 10 digits. So the input would be
0001234567
I discovered this after spending an hour trying to figure out what to do…
Hello!
my bank account has the following number :
LB57 0094 0000 0000 1234 5678 9900
What should I enter in “Bank Code” ( 5 characters maximum )
What should I enter in “Account number” (11 characters maximum )
I spent hours and couldn’t solve this problem, please can you help me?
Thanks a lot !
This is an IBAN, not your bank account number. Your bank code and account number are formatted into the IBAN. You can decode it as follows according to Wikipedia:
LBkk bbbb aaaa aaaa aaaa aaaa aaaa
b = National bank code (0094)
a = Account number (0000 0000 1234 5678 9900)
My account number after the zeros is 6 digits. When I put the 6 digits, the form said that the account number needs to be exactly 7 digits. I padded with preceding zero and it complained about the IBAN not matching with the account number. I then padded with one more zero (making it 8 digits instead of the 7 the form requested) and it accepted. Crazy. So the solution can be adding an eigth digit even when the form specifically requests for 7!
Thank you Steffen for that information.
Apple didn’t wanted to accept my Account Number and the only thing, my bank was able to tell me, is that my Account Number, shoud be the same as my IBAN, which means, they probably have no idea, which part of the IBAN is the actual account number. I’m from Bulgaria and with the help of your information and Wikipedia i found the 8 digits of my actual account number.. iTunes accepts it and now i hope it will work
Thanks again
I have one other thing, that bothers me. I hope you can help me.
I have registered in Apple as a company. LegalStructure is “Private Limited CO”. Now when filling my tax information in iTunes, it asks me: “3. Type of Beneficial Owner”. Coud you please help me, shoud i choose “Individual / Sole Proprietor” or “Corporation”? I’ve read somewhere that corporation is only for companies that have covernment related business, but that might not be correct…
Thanks