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Structured address migration postponed: SWIFT, the EPC and the ECB drop the November 2026 deadline

Published:

Author: SEPA.tr — Editorial

Period: 27 August – 23 September 2026 · Confidence level: A (ECB notices) / B (trade press reporting the EPC and SWIFT decisions — the official EPC/SWIFT pages could not be accessed directly)

The end of fully unstructured (free-text) addresses in payment messages, planned for November 2026, has been postponed in three separate infrastructures. No replacement date has been announced.

What happened?

DateBodyDecision
27 August 2026SWIFTDeferred all payments changes in Standards Release 2026, including the removal of fully unstructured addresses from CBPR+. A new timeline is expected by December 2026 at the latest.
~4 September 2026ECB / EurosystemMoved the November release of T2, T2S, TIPS and ECMS from 14 to 28 November 2026. A temporary measure lets fully unstructured addresses continue in T2 messages for a limited period; no end date given.
9 September 2026EPCPostponed the 15 November 2026 end date in SCT, SCT Inst, SDD Core, SDD B2B and OCT Inst without setting a new one. The new date is to be decided at the Board meeting in October 2026.

The EPC’s message is clear: “the direction of travel remains unchanged.” The migration is not cancelled, only rescheduled.

What is a “structured address”?

In ISO 20022 messages, an address can be sent in three ways:

  • Unstructured: street, town and country in free-text lines (AdrLine). This is the format being phased out.
  • Structured: each element in its own field: street (StrtNm), building number (BldgNb), post code (PstCd), town (TwnNm), country (Ctry).
  • Hybrid: at least town (TwnNm) and country (Ctry) in separate fields, the rest in up to two free-text lines.

What it means in practice

  • No sudden wave of rejections is expected in November 2026. Instructions with fully unstructured addresses will keep being processed for now.
  • It still makes sense to get used to entering town and country separately. The direction has not changed and a new date may be announced within months.
  • Türkiye is not yet in SEPA, so euro transfers between Türkiye and Europe go via SWIFT, where an address is already required. The new SWIFT (CBPR+) timeline matters most for you.
  • Businesses that keep customer/supplier addresses as separate street / post code / town / country fields will be ready when the requirement returns.

Turkish characters (ş, ğ, ı) in an address can be corrupted by some banks. Use the SEPA character set converter to make the text SEPA-compatible.

Is the recipient’s address required for SEPA? · SEPA vs SWIFT

This item will be updated when new dates are announced.

Sources

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