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🇦🇫 Sending to Afghanistan

AF · AFG

AFN

Restricted — sanctions   National format   SWIFT BIC required

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Sanctions Restrictions

GIB does not process payments to this destination. Submissions will be blocked by sanctions screening. Any exception requires written pre-authorization from GIB Compliance before submission.

Required information

  • Account number

    Afghanistan is not in the SWIFT IBAN Registry; domestic account numbers vary by bank under Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) supervision

  • SWIFT BIC

    Beneficiary bank BIC (8 or 11 characters).

  • DAB bank code

    Required local bank code.

  • Purpose-of-payment code (mandatory)

    Free-text; state the OFAC authorization basis (e.g., applicable general license) where relevant

  • Beneficiary address

    Match the address template — partial addresses cause holds.

For your end users

This country is subject to comprehensive sanctions. Wires may be blocked, returned, or held by screening. Consult your compliance team before initiating any transfer.

Last reviewed by GIB compliance on 2026-05-21. Reference material only.

  • Currency

    AFN

  • Typical settlement

    1-2 business days typical; longer for cross-border with FX or compliance review.

  • SWIFT BIC

    Required

  • Local clearing

    DAB-RTGS (Da Afghanistan Bank) — sanctions environment

Account format

How beneficiary account numbers are structured for Afghanistan. Failure to match this format is the single most common reason wires are rejected at the destination.

Field Value
Format tier National format
Length Afghanistan is not in the SWIFT IBAN Registry; domestic account numbers vary by bank under Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) supervision

Routing identifiers

Which routing codes the wire-creation API call must include for Afghanistan.

Field Value
SWIFT BIC Required
DAB bank code Required
Directory ↗ Source
Local clearing DAB-RTGS (Da Afghanistan Bank) — sanctions environment

Address format

How Afghanistan expects the beneficiary address to appear on the wire. Free-form variations frequently trigger compliance holds.

  1. Recipient Name
  2. Street, House Number
  3. District, City
  4. Province
  5. AFGHANISTAN
Field Value
Postal code Optional — validated against the format below when provided
Postal code regex ^[0-9]{4}$
Example 1001

Purpose of payment

Put the purpose in the remittance information (<RmtInf><Ustrd>) of the ISO 20022 wire-creation request, as the code format below describes. Requirement: Mandatory GIB check: a missing or unexpected purpose is reported as a validation warning; the wire is not held.

Not yet confirmed

We have not yet confirmed this country's purpose-of-payment requirement against a central-bank or correspondent-bank source. Including a purpose is recommended. We update these guides as we confirm each country.

Non-standard element

For Afghanistan, the purpose is placed in <RmtInf> (remittance info), not the standard <Purp> element.

Field Value
Code format Free-text; state the OFAC authorization basis (e.g., applicable general license) where relevant

Operational notes

Field Value
Currencies accepted AFN
Typical settlement 1-2 business days typical; longer for cross-border with FX or compliance review.
Banking holidays ↗ Calendar

Known issues:

  • OFAC program: Counter-terrorism designations under Global Terrorism Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 594, GTSR), Foreign Terrorist Organizations Sanctions Regulations (31 CFR Part 597), and E.O. 13224; plus E.O. 14064 (DAB reserves).
  • No comprehensive country embargo; sanctions are SDN-based against the Taliban / Haqqani Network rather than against Afghanistan as a state.
  • General licenses: GL 14 (humanitarian assistance), GL 15 (agricultural commodities, medicine, medical devices), GL 16 (noncommercial personal remittances), GL 17 (telecommunications and internet), GL 18 (U.S. government activity), GL 19 (international organizations including UN, ICRC), GL 20 (broad transactions with Afghan governing institutions including DAB for basic-human-needs activity).
  • FATF status: Afghanistan is currently OFF the FATF grey list and OFF the black list; this is separate from the OFAC sanctions posture and does NOT lower OFAC diligence requirements.
  • Wires require OFAC compliance pre-clearance against the SDN list and explicit mapping to a GL category before release.

Common rejection reasons

Documented patterns that cause this country's banks to return wires. Universal reasons (sanctions holds, missing BIC) aren't repeated here.

All wires subject to sanctions screening hold and compliance review.
Beneficiary name mismatch.
Missing or invalid SWIFT/BIC code.
Insufficient remittance information.
Beneficiary or beneficiary bank on OFAC / EU / UN / UK sanctions list.
OFAC SDN match: Taliban, Haqqani Network, and entities they own 50 percent or more (governs Afghan central-bank governance bodies post-Aug 2021).
Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) reserves at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York remain frozen pursuant to E.O. 14064.
UN 1988 (Taliban) and 1267 (Al-Qaida / ISIL) sanctions list matches.
Counterparty in a Taliban-controlled ministry that falls outside the GL 20 carveout.
Hawala-network routing nominally outside the regulated banking sector.

Validate before you send

Check identifiers before you submit. The IBAN check runs in your browser (format plus the ISO 13616 MOD-97 check digit). GIB's API checks the IBAN format for countries where an IBAN is required. The BIC lookup searches GIB's BIC directory and needs a dashboard login.

BIC lookup

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References

First-party sources — central banks, FX regulators, ISO registries. Always re-verify against these before pushing volume to a new corridor.

Disclaimer

These country guides aggregate information from central banks, regulators, and industry-standard references. Global Innovations Bank reviews them on a rolling cadence and notes the verification date on each page. Payment-corridor rules change between releases, so we cannot guarantee continued accuracy.

Always verify against the primary sources linked in the References section before going live in a new corridor. Re-check applicable sanctions lists (OFAC, EU, UK, UN consolidated, and any state-level requirements) at the time of payment, since designations shift between our refreshes.

For fintech partners on GIB's sponsor-bank rails, these guides do not replace your BSA/AML, KYC, sanctions-screening, or transaction-monitoring obligations under your program agreement with GIB.

Nothing in this material constitutes legal, tax, or regulatory advice, and wire-acceptance decisions remain at the discretion of GIB Compliance and the destination bank.

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