If you’re collecting one of the roughly 2.16 billion payments that happen via Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) Direct Debit in the Netherlands each year, you need an incassant ID (also known as a creditor identifier). It’s the unique identifier that tells the European banking system where the payment is going. It travels with debit transactions, shows up on customer bank statements, and plays a central role in how banks process, verify, and protect transactions.

Below, we’ll explain what an incassant ID is, how it works, and why it matters.

What’s in this article?

• What is an incassant ID?
  
• Who issues an incassant ID in the Netherlands?
  
• Why is an incassant ID important for SEPA Direct Debit payments?
  
• How can you look up or verify an incassant ID?
  
• What does an incassant ID look like?
  
• How Stripe Payments can help
  

What is an incassant ID?

An incassant ID (called a “creditor identifier” in English) is your official identity as a SEPA Direct Debit creditor. It’s a unique string of characters that tells the banking system who’s authorized to pull funds from customer accounts. The incassant ID is what gives your SEPA debits legitimacy. It shows the system and your customers that you’re a real, authorized actor.

Every SEPA Direct Debit payment includes an incassant ID so customers and banks can recognize, trace, and authorize a payment. The combination of your incassant ID and the customer’s SEPA mandate reference, a unique number that identifies their authorization to proceed, creates a unique fingerprint for each debit. Both show up on bank statements to make transactions transparent and traceable.

Who issues an incassant ID in the Netherlands?

You can get an incassant ID by signing a direct debit agreement with your bank.

That agreement, known in Dutch as an incassocontract, authorizes your business to initiate debits. Once it’s approved, your bank issues the incassant ID.

The incassant ID is linked to your legal entity. It embeds your registration number from the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce (KVK)—“Kamer van Koophandel” in Dutch—which ties it to your company specifically.

If you’re using a third-party payment provider, you might initially operate under its incassant ID instead. You can always switch to your own incassant ID later for more control and visibility.

Why is an incassant ID important for SEPA Direct Debit payments?

SEPA Direct Debit works because everyone in the system—banks, businesses, and customers—can clearly tell who’s requesting a payment.

Here’s what your incassant ID does.

It identifies the business behind the debit

Every time you collect a SEPA Direct Debit payment, your incassant ID travels with the transaction. The customer’s bank uses it to recognize the party that initiated the charge and (if needed) filter, allow, or block it. Customers see your incassant ID on their account statements, usually alongside your company name and the mandate reference. That gives them full visibility into who charged them and which agreement the payment is tied to.

It supports customer protection

SEPA is built around strong customer protections. Customers have the right to dispute any authorized debit within eight weeks, no justification needed. The window extends to 13 months for unauthorized debits. Banks rely on the incassant ID to route complaints, enforce chargebacks, and hold the correct party accountable.

It connects to the mandate

Every SEPA Direct Debit payment must be backed by a mandate, an agreement between you and your customer that permits you to pull funds from their account. The incassant ID is listed directly on that mandate. When the customer’s bank later receives a debit, it compares the ID in the payment file to the one listed on the mandate. If they don’t match, the bank rejects the payment.

How can you look up or verify an incassant ID?

If your business uses SEPA Direct Debit, your incassant ID should be on file with your bank. It’s also listed in your SEPA contract and might be embedded in onboarding documents or dashboards, if you’re working with a payment provider.

But if you need to track one down (yours or someone else’s), there are a few reliable options.

Here’s how to find your own incassant ID:

• Start with your bank: Your bank should have issued you an incassant ID.

• Use a KVK-based lookup: Dutch companies can use SEPAtool to retrieve their IDs, or incassant ID opzoeken, using their KVK numbers. This works because Dutch incassant IDs embed your KVK number in positions 8–15 of the code.

Here’s how to verify someone else’s incassant ID:

• Use the KVK number in the ID: If you see a Dutch incassant ID, you can pull out the eight-digit KVK and look it up in the official business register.

• Ask your bank: Banks maintain internal mappings of incassant IDs to company names. If a charge looks unfamiliar, your bank can tell you who’s behind it.

Banks, payments service providers (PSPs), and customers all rely on this visibility to manage whitelists, detect fraud, and validate mandates.

What does an incassant ID look like?

A Dutch incassant ID is 19 characters long and follows a fixed structure. Here’s the basic format: NLkkZZZxxxxxxxxssss.

• NL: Country code for the Netherlands

• kk: Check digits, calculated using the algorithm of International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 7064 Mod 97-10

• ZZZ: Creditor business code (if the code’s not used, then this is filled with “ZZZ”)

• xxxxxxxx: Your KVK number

• ssss: Numerical code as issued or agreed by the creditor PSP

For example, in the incassant ID NL92ZZZ123456780001, we know it represents a Dutch company with check digits 92, a default business code, a KVK of 12345678, and the sequence 0001.

In many cases, you’ll see ZZZ as the default business code.

How Stripe Payments can help

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