Payments Region Checker

Payments Region Checker classifies card payments by region from countries, ISO codes or BINs: EU/EEA/eurozone/SEPA membership, the SCA regime that applies, the cross-border type and interchange-cap notes.

Best for: Payments product and pricing teams, integration and solutions engineers, and anyone explaining UK vs EU card rules after Brexit.

How to check the region of a card payment

1. Add queries to Queries: a country (Bulgaria), a pair (GB > IE) or {"card": "535522", "merchant": "DE"}.
2. Click Start.
3. Read transactionClassification, scaRegime and interchangeNote for each query.

How it works

All reference lists live in the code and are dated: EU-27, EEA (EU + Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway), euro area (21 members incl. Bulgaria from 1 Jan 2026), SEPA scheme countries (EPC list incl. UK, Switzerland, Crown Dependencies, Albania, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia). BIN-to-country uses an open BIN list (CC BY 4.0). The tool assumes the issuer is in the card country and the acquirer is in the merchant country.

Output

input, cardCountry, merchantCountry, card, merchant, transactionClassification, scaRegime, interchangeNote

Pricing (pay-per-event)

• lookup-done: $0.0005 per result ($0.5 / 1,000). Platform usage is included; you pay only for results.
• Example: 10,000 lookups cost $5.00.

Example input

{
  "queries": [
    "Bulgaria",
    "GB > IE",
    "US / FR",
    {
      "card": "535522",
      "merchant": "DE"
    }
  ]
}

Example output

Values below are illustrative.

{
  "input": "GB > DE",
  "cardCountry": "GB",
  "merchantCountry": "DE",
  "card": {
    "eu": false,
    "eea": false,
    "eurozone": false,
    "sepa": true
  },
  "merchant": {
    "eu": true,
    "eea": true,
    "eurozone": true,
    "sepa": true
  },
  "transactionClassification": "UK-EEA cross-border (inter-regional since Brexit)",
  "scaRegime": "One-leg-out: SCA is 'best efforts' only",
  "interchangeNote": "UK-EEA CNP: no IFR cap since Brexit..."
}

Use it via API, schedules and integrations

Run it in Apify Console, or call it from your own code with the Apify API or the Python and JavaScript clients. Save an input as a task and add a schedule to run it regularly, and send results to Slack, email, webhooks, Zapier, Make or n8n with Apify integrations. AI agents can find and run it through the Apify MCP server.

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient("YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN")
run = client.actor("sterlingverify/payments-region-checker").call(run_input={"queries": ["GB > IE", {"card": "535522", "merchant": "DE"}]})
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

FAQ

How up to date are the country lists?

The lists are dated in the code and reflect October 2026, including Bulgaria joining the euro area on 1 Jan 2026. Check official sources for later changes.

Is this regulatory advice?

No. It is informational only, not legal or regulatory advice.

Disclaimer

Sources: European Union (europa.eu), EFTA/EEA Agreement, European Central Bank, European Payments Council SEPA scheme countries list, EU PSD2 RTS (Reg. 2018/389), FCA UK SCA RTS, EU Interchange Fee Regulation (EU) 2015/751, UK Payment Systems Regulator. Lists as at October 2026; check them for recent changes. BIN data: binlist-data by Ian Nuttall, CC BY 4.0 (not an official register). Informational only, not legal or regulatory advice.

Related sterlingVerify tools

Part of the sterlingVerify UK payments, KYB and data toolkit on Apify Store:

• BIN Lookup: bulk BIN lookup for scheme, type, issuer and country
• IBAN Validator: offline bulk IBAN validation and parsing
• MCC Checker: check a merchant's MCC against its website or description
• Payments Integration Spec Pack: branded PDF payments integration spec with completeness report