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QR-bill structured address: what changes in November

Published 2026-11-03 · 9 min read

What is the structured address on a QR-bill?

The structured address is an address split into separate elements inside the Swiss QR Code: name, street, building number, postal code, town and country each sit on their own line. Since version 2.3 of the SIX Implementation Guidelines for the QR-bill it is the only form allowed, for your own address as the biller and for the debtor’s address alike.

In the code, an address takes up seven lines. For the creditor they are lines 5 to 11 of the code, for the ultimate debtor lines 21 to 27. Postal code, town and country are mandatory; street and building number are optional. The creditor’s details must match the account the payment goes to.

The elements on lines 7 and 8 are still called “…OrAdrLine1” and “…OrAdrLine2”, a leftover. Under type K those two fields held the whole address as free text. Under type S they hold only street and building number; postal code and town get lines of their own. Lines 12 to 18 (the ultimate creditor) stay empty, but their separators are still sent. Source for the table: version 2.4 for type S, version 2.2 for type K.

What happened to address type K?

Address type K, the combined address fields, was removed with version 2.3 of the Implementation Guidelines. SIX says version 2.3 is “valid from 21 November 2025”. The SIX factsheets on the transition period put the entry into force one day later, on 22 November 2025. Billing had to be switched over by 21 November 2025 at the latest.

According to SIX, bills with unstructured addresses can only be used for a short transitional period after 21 November 2025 (SIX factsheet for SMEs). SIX gives no calendar date for the end of that period; banks give their own. That sounds like a formality. For rent and leasing it is not: if you handed customers QR-bills months in advance, you have to replace them in time. A hybrid address, which some banks accept in payment orders, is not planned for the QR-bill, according to SIX (SIX factsheet for software providers).

Version 2.3 also brought a wider character set: more special characters and umlauts, so every character the federal administration allows in the register of persons now works.

What changes for the QR-bill in November 2026?

November 2026 brings two dates that bind different people: the banks clean up their templates, and version 2.4 of the guidelines takes effect. On the same day the rules for payment orders change too, which is often mixed up with the QR-bill. As of 28.10.2026, the SIX documents say:

For an invoice in francs this means: if your QR-bills have carried structured addresses since November 2025, there is nothing to do on 14.11.2026. You do have to act if you bill in euros against a QR-IBAN. Old e-banking templates and standing orders you pay with are your bank’s to adjust by 13.11.2026; follow its instructions. How payment files and statements reach the bank is covered in EBICS explained.

QR reference, SCOR reference or no reference: which one do you use?

Your account decides which reference you use: a QR-IBAN requires the QR reference (QRR), a plain IBAN allows the SCOR reference or none at all (NON). From 14.11.2026 the currency joins in, because QR-IBAN and QR reference then work in francs only. Both references let you match incoming payments to your invoices automatically.

You can tell a QR-IBAN by its institution identifier: positions 5 to 9 fall between 30000 and 31999. It is for incoming payments only. A QR reference on a plain IBAN is not allowed, and neither is a SCOR reference on a QR-IBAN. The unstructured message and the billing information share a limit of 140 characters.

How does TILL build a QR-bill with a structured address?

TILL builds the Swiss QR Code from two sets of master data: your creditor profile and the customer’s contact. Both store the address in separate fields (street, building number, postal code, town, country), never as a block of text. The code knows one address type only, and the encoder always writes an S as the address type (lines 5 and 21). TILL cannot produce a type K address at all.

 1  SPC
 2  0200
 3  1
 4  CH5800791123000889012
 5  S
 6  Muster Werkstatt GmbH
 7  Werkstattweg
 8  12
 9  8000
10  Seldwyla
11  CH
12  (lines 12 to 18: empty, ultimate creditor)
19  1081.00
20  CHF
21  S
22  Simon Muster
23  Musterstrasse
24  1
25  8000
26  Seldwyla
27  CH
28  SCOR
29  RF15R20260042
30  Rechnung R-2026-0042
31  EPD

TILL derives the reference from the account. If the stored IBAN is a QR-IBAN, it writes a QR reference, otherwise a SCOR reference, both from the number of the issued invoice. A draft has no QR-bill yet, so the reference never changes after the invoice is issued.

Before it writes anything, TILL checks every block: a name, a postal code, a town and a two-letter country must be there, no field may exceed its maximum length, and every character must be in the permitted set. If something is missing, TILL answers needs_creditor_address or needs_customer_address and names the field. It never falls back to an unstructured address. The invoice can still be issued and posted; only the payment part is missing until the address is complete.

One rule of version 2.4 is already built in for 14.11.2026: a euro invoice dated on or after that day against a QR-IBAN gets no payment part but the answer qr_iban_chf_only, with the way out (a plain IBAN with a SCOR reference). The invoice date decides, not today’s date, so an invoice issued earlier prints the same when you print it again. What TILL does for Swiss books in general is on the Swiss page.

Checklist: is your QR-bill ready for November?

These points hold for any software you write QR-bills with:

1. Your own address sits in separate fields: street, building number, postal code, town, country.
2. Every customer address that goes on a QR-bill is split the same way, with at least postal code, town and country.
3. The postal code has no country prefix (8000, not CH-8000), and the country is a two-letter code (CH, LI, DE).
4. Put the building number in its own field where you can. SIX tolerates it in the street field for now, but requires a complete, correct address. The street has at most 70 characters, the building number 16, the town 35.
5. Recurring QR-bills with a type K address (rent, instalments) have been replaced by new ones with type S.
6. For your own standing orders and e-banking templates you follow your bank’s instructions; they must be adjusted by 13.11.2026.
7. From 14.11.2026, invoices in euros go through a plain IBAN, with a SCOR reference or without a reference.
8. A QR-IBAN always goes with the QR reference, a plain IBAN with the SCOR reference or none. The two are never mixed.

What this article and TILL do not solve

TILL checks that a QR-bill is built correctly. Whether the address is right in the real world, it cannot tell. These limits hold today:

• The encoder is pinned to version 2.3, which stays valid until November 2027. The code keeps the move to 2.4 as a separate, reviewed change; until then TILL applies only the francs rule for the QR-IBAN from 2.4.
• What is tested is structural conformance against the cited guidelines, with TILL’s own tests and an independent QR decoder. That is not a SIX certification.
• TILL does not see what is inside the street field. A building number someone typed into the street passes, which SIX also allows for now, and a postal code is not checked against the town.
• On an invoice, TILL always writes a QR or SCOR reference, never type NON.
• A workspace has exactly one IBAN for invoices. If that is a QR-IBAN, a euro invoice gets no payment part from 14.11.2026.
• TILL does not change your standing orders or templates at the bank, and sending invoices by email is not in the beta yet.

TILL is a public beta, and the code is public under MIT. What is in the beta and what comes later is listed under capabilities.