# Swish QR > Source: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/swish-qr > research date 2026-05-28 · extracted at 2026-10-06 > Publisher: Barcoder — encyclopedia of QR, barcode and payment-code standards Specifications: - [Swish — official](https://www.swish.nu/) - [Swish — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(payment)) ## Overview Swish is Sweden's national mobile payment system, founded in **2012** by six of Sweden's largest banks as a joint venture, and ranks as one of the most successful bank-backed mobile payment platforms in the world by per-capita adoption — **8+ million users in a country of ~10 million (~86 % of the population, February 2025)** [1][1], [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). The **Swish QR code** feature launched in **2017**, encoding payment details (Swish number, amount, message, editable-field flags) as text inside a standard [QR Code](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/qr-code) symbol — using a Swish-proprietary text format rather than EMVCo TLV [2][2], [3][3]. By 2025 Swish processed **~1.1 billion transactions per year** (May 2025 was the first single month past 100 M); the 2024 split was **484 M P2P (44 %) / 604 M commerce (56 %)** worth **SEK 309 B P2P + SEK 251 B commerce**, with **345,000+ connected businesses** end-2024 [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **Settlement migrated to RIX-INST (Riksbank's central-bank instant payment platform) in February 2024**, replacing the previous Bankgirot-operated rail [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE), [4][4]. ## History **Founding (December 2012)**: Six competing Swedish banks formed Swish AB and launched the service as a person-to-person mobile payment system [1][1], [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE): - Danske Bank - Handelsbanken - Länsförsäkringar - Nordea - SEB - Swedbank The proposition was simple: send money to anyone whose mobile phone number you know, instantly, free, via your existing bank's app. No new account, no card, no codes. **Evolution timeline** [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE), [1][1]: - **2012** — Swish launched, person-to-person only. - **2014** — Organisations / businesses can receive payments. - **2017** — **Swish QR code** launched. E-commerce / web-based sales support added. - **2019** — Founding member of EMPSA (European Mobile Payments Systems Association). - **February 2024** — Migration from Bankgirot's BiR (Betalningar i realtid) to Riksbank's **RIX-INST** instant payment platform. Settlement now in central-bank money — eliminates bankruptcy-risk of clearing-bank failures [4][4]. - **November 2024** — NCT-INST mandate (Nordic Payments Council) requires all RIX-INST participants to accept instant payments [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **2024** — Zimpler partnership announced for merchant integration [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **Bank participation** has expanded well beyond the six founders; additional Swedish banks (Skandia, Sparbanken Syd, ICA Banken, etc.) joined over time [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). ## Technical specification Unlike most national QR payment standards, **Swish does not use EMVCo TLV**. Its QR code carries a **Swish-proprietary text payload** with semicolon-separated fields [3][3], [5][5]. **Swish QR text format** [3][3]: ``` C;;; ``` Where: - **`C`** — leading character identifying a Swish payment QR (Type C — the dominant format). - **``** — recipient's Swish-registered mobile phone number (Swedish format, no country prefix needed for domestic). - **``** — integer in base 10. Some implementations multiply by 100 for cents. - **``** — free-text payment note. - **``** — bitstring controlling which fields the payer can override: - `0b001` (1) — PHONE_EDITABLE - `0b010` (2) — AMOUNT_EDITABLE - `0b100` (4) — MESSAGE_EDITABLE - `0b111` (7) — all editable - `0b000` (0) — all locked **Swish QR Types** as documented by [lindskogen/swish-qr-format][6] [6][6]: | Type | Description | |---|---| | **Type A** | Basic payment to a Swish number (number only) | | **Type B** | Payment with a specified amount | | **Type C** | Payment with customisable message and editable-field bitmask (the dominant production format) | | **Type D** | Base64-encoded format (undocumented) | The Swish QR text format is **proprietary and unpublished by Swish AB** — `lindskogen/swish-qr-format` is the result of reverse-engineering production QR codes [6][6]. **Underlying symbology**: standard [QR Code](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/qr-code) (ISO/IEC 18004), no Swish-specific QR modifications. **Settlement** (post-February 2024) [4][4], [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE): - Inter-bank routing handled by Swish AB. - Settlement via **RIX-INST**, the Riksbank's instant payment platform (based on TIPS — TARGET Instant Payment Settlement). - 24/7/365 availability. - Central-bank-money settlement (no clearing-bank credit risk). - ISO 20022 messaging on the underlying rail. ## Use cases Swish is essentially universal across Swedish payment contexts; the QR code feature has been instrumental at the small-merchant and informal-vendor end: - **Person-to-person transfers** — the original 2012 use case; instant, free [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **Small retail / POS** — almost every café, restaurant, supermarket displays a Swish QR or accepts via Swish number entry [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **Flea markets and informal vendors** — Swish QR (and pre-QR, the Swish-number-entry method) replaced cash at outdoor markets and farmers' stands [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **Charity donations** — donation collection at events, churches; the simplicity is the point [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **E-commerce checkout** — since 2017, Swish QR is a standard online-checkout option for Swedish customers [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE), [1][1]. - **Invoice payment requests** — Swish "payment request links" can be shared digitally [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). - **Corporate billing** — real-time payment visibility for businesses, refund tools, reporting [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **Statistics (2024)** [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE): - 1.1 billion transactions - ~SEK 600 billion in transaction value (~€55 billion) - ~450 million P2P transactions - ~650 million business payments - 3+ million daily transactions - ~70 % of small Swedish businesses accept Swish - ~80 % adult population uses Swish **Adjacent technologies in Swedish banking apps**: - **OCR scanning** for paper invoices — a separate OCR-number reference printed on Swedish invoices, scanned by the same banking app that handles Swish. Not a QR code but the same camera workflow. Universal in Swedbank, SEB and other Swedish bank apps [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). ## Implementations The proprietary text format is small and trivial to generate — the implementation work is in QR rendering, not the payload — so there are few high-star Swish QR libraries despite Swish's massive adoption. The bigger work happens inside Swedish bank apps via Swish AB's gated API. **Open-source libraries:** - **JavaScript** — [gillstrom/swish-qr][7] — 25★, last active 2015. Node.js module that generates Swish QR codes [7][7]. Has not been updated since the early days of Swish QR. - **JavaScript** — [lindskogen/swish-qr-format][6] — 4★. Documents the reverse-engineered Swish QR format including all four type variants (A/B/C/D) [6][6]. More valuable as reference docs than as a runtime library. **Bank app integrations** (canonical production deployments) [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE): - **Swedbank Private** (Swedbank) - **SEB** - **Handelsbanken** - **Nordea Mobile** (Nordea) - **Länsförsäkringar** Plus other Swedish bank apps. Every Swedish bank app supports both scanning a Swish QR and generating one for receiving. **BankID dependency**: Swish authentication is gated through **BankID**, Sweden's national digital identification system, which provides strong customer authentication for every payment confirmation [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **Merchant SDKs**: - Direct Swish for Business API (Swish AB). - **Zimpler** (recent partnership) — merchant onboarding and payment-flow tooling [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). ## Comparison **vs. [BLIK](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/blik) (Poland)** — Closest peer: both founded by a consortium of six competing national banks (Swish: 2012; BLIK: 2015) in non-Eurozone countries with their own national currency (SEK / PLN), both achieved near-universal adoption (~80 % SE / ~45 % PL of population), both QR-supported but with a primary non-QR interaction (Swish: phone number entry; BLIK: 6-digit code). The bank-consortium founding pattern is the structural commonality — competing-banks-collaborating is how you reach critical mass for national mobile payments without state mandate [Poland report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PL), [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **vs. [TWINT](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/twint) (Switzerland)** — Also a bank-consortium mobile payment system; both Swiss and Swedish models reflect their respective economies' bank concentration and willingness to collaborate on shared standards. TWINT has ~60 bank-specific app versions; Swish has one Swish app + per-bank integrations. Both are near-universal in their home markets [Switzerland report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CH), [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **vs. EMVCo MPM family ([SGQR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/sgqr), [DuitNow QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/duitnow-qr), [PromptPay QR](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/promptpay-qr), [Pix](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/pix))** — Swish's text format is the **outlier among major national QR payment standards in not using EMVCo TLV**. This is a 2017 design choice that reflects Swish QR's role as a domestic-only convenience overlay on an already-dominant phone-number payment scheme, rather than a from-scratch national QR standard. The trade-off: simpler payload, but no cross-border interoperability with EMVCo-based systems without a translation bridge [3][3], [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). **vs. [EPC QR / Stuzza](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/standards/epc-qr) (European SEPA standard)** — Sweden is non-Eurozone (SEK), so EPC QR's SEPA Credit Transfer mechanism isn't directly applicable. Swedish bank apps support OCR scanning for paper invoices (a barcode-style reference, not a QR), filling the invoice-payment niche EPC QR occupies in eurozone countries [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). ## Fun facts Swish achieved **~80 % of the Swedish adult population in just over a decade** — among the highest adoption rates of any national payment system globally [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE), [1][1]. The combination of small homogeneous population, high banking penetration, smartphone ubiquity, BankID's strong authentication foundation, and bank-consortium founding gave Swish an unusual launch advantage. The **February 2024 migration to RIX-INST** moved Swish's underlying settlement from a commercial-bank-operated rail (Bankgirot's BiR) to the **central-bank's instant payment platform (Riksbank's RIX-INST, based on TIPS)** [4][4], [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). This is one of the most consequential payment-system architectural changes in recent Swedish history — eliminating commercial-bank-credit risk from instant payments and bringing Swish into alignment with the European TIPS infrastructure that backs SEPA Instant Credit Transfer. **Sweden is the most cash-averse country in Europe** — 367.4 card payments per capita (highest in the EU) and approaching near-cashless status [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). Swish's QR is one of the small set of digital-payment touchpoints that filled the role cash used to fill: paying the kid for shoveling snow, paying the farmer at the stand, paying for the second-hand bicycle at the flea market. The cash-replacement use cases gave Swish QR a different cultural meaning than EMVCo MPM QRs have in countries where cash never fully receded. The **Swish QR text format is officially undocumented** — Swish AB doesn't publish the spec [6][6]. The `lindskogen/swish-qr-format` repository is the result of community reverse-engineering production QRs. The closed-spec posture is unusual for a national payment system; most peers (Pix, PromptPay, SGQR, DuitNow) publish detailed open specs. ## Status **Active and infrastructurally significant.** Most recent metrics [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE): - **~8 million users** (~80 % of Swedish adult population) - **1.1 billion transactions / year (2024)** - **~SEK 600 billion annual value (~€55 billion)** - **~70 % small-business acceptance** - **3+ million daily transactions** - **Settlement: RIX-INST (Riksbank central-bank infrastructure since Feb 2024)** **Migration to T2 (European) RTGS platform under discussion** for the parent RIX-RTGS system, with expected ~5-year transition; this would further integrate Swedish payment infrastructure with European standards while Sweden remains non-Eurozone [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). EMPSA founding membership positions Swish for possible European mobile payment expansion, though no concrete cross-border rollout plan has been announced as of 2025 [Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE). No deprecation planned; Swish is canonical Swedish payment infrastructure. ## Sources [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swish_(payment) [2]: https://www.swish.nu/ [3]: https://github.com/topics/swish [4]: https://www.riksbank.se/en-gb/press-and-published/notices-and-press-releases/notices/2024/swish-payments-moved-from-bankgirots-payment-system-to-the-riksbanks/ [5]: https://github.com/mvallim/emv-qrcode [6]: https://github.com/lindskogen/swish-qr-format [7]: https://github.com/gillstrom/swish-qr [8]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1133092/number-of-swish-payments-in-sweden/ [se-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE [pl-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PL [ch-cro]: https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/CH 1. [Swish (payment) — Wikipedia][1] 2. [Swish — official][2] 3. [Swish — GitHub topic][3] 4. [Swish payments moved to RIX-INST — Riksbank press notice 2024][4] 5. [mvallim/emv-qrcode — general EMV QR reference][5] 6. [lindskogen/swish-qr-format — reverse-engineered format docs][6] 7. [gillstrom/swish-qr — JS encoder][7] 8. [Swish transactions in Sweden — Statista][8] 9. [SE-sweden.md][Sweden report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE) 10. [PL-poland.md][Poland report](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/PL) ## Deployments Found in the following country reports (grep across `reports/countries/`): - **SE** — [SE-sweden.md](https://docs.barcoder.ai/docs/payments/SE)