A routing number consists of a five digit
transit number (also called
branch number) identifying the
branch where an account is held and a three digit
financial institution number corresponding to the financial institution. The number is given as one of the following forms, where XXXXX is the transit number and YYY is the financial institution number: • for
MICR-encoded documents • for
electronic funds transfers A
leading zero is used when formatting a routing number for electronic payments.
Routing symbol The symbol that delimits a routing number on MICR-encoded paper documents is the
E-13B transit character (
Unicode value U+2446): ⑆
Transit numbers Each
branch in a financial institution is assigned a unique transit number for identification. The format of the transit number may vary by institution. Most institutions use the transit number and branch number synonymously.
TD and
Bank of Montreal use four-digit branch numbers, reserving the final digit of the transit number for the geographical location of the branch. While there is variation between institutions, most transit numbers encode geographic region into the last digit using a pattern like: • for
British Columbia and
Yukon • for western
Quebec, including
Montreal. Some institutions include
Gatineau here, others group it with
Ottawa. • for most of
Ontario, including
Toronto and
Southern Ontario • for
Nova Scotia,
Prince Edward Island. Some institutions list
Newfoundland or
Labrador here. • for
New Brunswick • for eastern
Quebec including
Quebec City • for
Ottawa and its surrounding area. • for
Manitoba and north-western
Ontario, including
Thunder Bay. • for
Saskatchewan • for
Alberta, the
Northwest Territories and
Nunavut Under this pattern, the first branch of the first bank to have national operations (
Banque de Montréal,
119, rue Saint Jacques,
Montréal) would have the branch number 0001, the region number 1 (due to being located in western Québec), and the institution number 001, yielding the MICR code . BMO and TD do not consider the fifth digit of the transit number to be part of the branch number and will not create five-digit codes for different branches which differ only in the final, fifth digit. If Montreal is then the next site (
First Canadian Place Toronto) is , with remaining permanently unassigned. Likewise, the electronic routing number for a branch of either TD Bank or BMO will start with a , followed successively by the 3-digit institution number, the 4-digit branch number, and the single-digit number for the region in which the bank is located. For example, the routing number of a TD Bank branch with the branch number situated in
Scarborough, Ontario, is : [Start off] [institution number] [branch number] [because the branch is in Ontario].
RBC also uses four-digit branch numbers, but these include the last digit, with the transit numbers instead being padded with leading zeroes. While some older branches happen to adhere to the pattern above, it has been abandoned for many newer RBC branches, apparently to limit RBC's branch transit numbers to four digits.
Desjardins uses all five digits as significant with no region coding in the fifth digit. Most small local
credit unions use the institution number to indicate a "Credit Union Central" organisation for a specific province; the transit number indicates a specific branch of a specific member institution. As transit numbers are issued arbitrarily or sequentially, multiple branches of the same credit union typically do not get assigned a contiguous block of numbers. While the province may be embedded in the transit number, the info is superfluous; a small Ontario credit union will be regardless of its location in-province.
Financial institution numbers A selection of institution numbers for major Canadian financial institutions is below. ==Directories of routing numbers==