On 31 December 2025 the European standards body CEN published EN 18184:2025, a single specification for QR codes that start a SEPA credit transfer. It covers both directions: a shop showing a code for the customer to scan, and a customer showing a code for the shop to scan. It works for ordinary transfers and for SEPA Instant. The announcement was covered by Payment Expert.
What existed before
Since 2012 the European Payments Council’s EPC069-12 “EPC QR code” has been the format for a payment code printed on a bill. It holds a service tag, version, character set, the letters SCT, the payee’s BIC and name, the IBAN, an amount and a reference. Banking apps in Germany, Austria, Belgium, Finland and the Netherlands read it, and it is why so many European utility bills carry a QR code. Its limits were that it only worked payee-presented and only for standard transfers. The Wikipedia page has the field list.
What the new standard adds
- Payer-presented codes, so a customer can show a code at a till.
- Instant payments alongside standard ones.
- A structure aligned with the EMVCo merchant-presented QR format used across Asia, which makes interoperability with foreign wallets easier.
What changes for a small business
Nothing on day one. Your existing EPC QR invoices keep working. Over the next year or two, watch for your bank’s app to announce EN 18184 support, and for point-of-sale providers to offer payer-presented codes as a cheaper alternative to card terminals for small amounts.
In practice
Payment QR codes should always be generated by the bank or payment provider, not hand-assembled. A single wrong character in an IBAN sends money to the wrong account, and the formats have checksums and character-set rules that a generic generator does not check.
We explain how all the payment formats relate in the payment QR codes article.