In October 2025, the European Payments Council (EPC) released version 2.1 of the EPC guidance document on the provision of addresses under the EPC payment schemes.
This document results from the EPC decision taken in September 2025 to amend the document on the following aspects:
- Throughout the document, the initially determined date of 22 November 2026 as of which the unstructured address format is no longer permitted, has been changed into 15 November 2026. This amended date is aligned with the November 2026 Swift Standards MX Release date scheduled in the second full weekend of November 2026.
In line with this date change, at the same time the EPC also published version 1.1 of all five 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks. The version 1.1 of each 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebook has no impact on any other business or operational rules compared to the version 1.0 of each 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebook concerned. - Section 7.4 has been updated to clarify which date in the payment messages to take into consideration to forbid the use of the unstructured address format i.e. being the Inter-PSP space settlement date of 15 November 2026.
- Amendment of the section 7.1 with the entry-into-force of the Funds Transfer Regulation 3 (FTR3).
- Some minor and editorial amendments made in the sections 3, 4, 5 and 7.5.
This document provides detailed guidance about the provision of the address of the payer and of the payee, in a structured, hybrid, or unstructured format (the latter format only permitted until 15 November 2026) under all five 2025 EPC payment scheme rulebooks.
The EPC emphasizes that the EPC payment scheme participants, the payment service users and their respective technical service providers will thus have one week less in 2026 to make the switch from the unstructured address format to either the structured or the hybrid address format.