Quick answer
An LEI, or Legal Entity Identifier, is a 20-character code that financial firms and regulators worldwide use to identify a company. Banks and brokers ask for it because regulation obliges them to record a company client’s LEI before offering investments, derivatives and some other services. Check the free public LEI database first, as your company may already have one. If not, a new code can be ordered online, and through us it is usually ready within one or two working days.
A request for an LEI often comes with little explanation: an email from the bank, a new field in a broker’s onboarding form or a message in the Revolut Business app. It does not mean anything is wrong with your company. It is a routine identification step, and in our experience the bank or broker simply asks for the code. Companies that do not yet have a code can order an LEI through our online form in a few minutes.
What Is an LEI?
An LEI is a code of 20 letters and digits defined by the international standard ISO 17442, and it works like a passport number for a company in the financial world. You may also see it called an LEI number or LEI code. Each code belongs to one legal entity only, and a company never holds two codes at once: the same LEI serves all its banks and brokers.
Every LEI is linked to a public record with the company’s official name and address, the business register that holds its entry and its number there, and any parent companies. The Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) publishes these records in a free online database that anyone can search. Our own company, Eesti Firma OÜ, for example, has the LEI 2549006RA6TCO1KHOJ54.
The LEI does not replace your company’s registration number or VAT number. Our guide to company identifiers explains how these numbers differ.
Who Issues LEIs and What GLEIF Does
LEIs are issued by accredited organisations known as LEI issuers. They range from financial data providers to stock exchanges and national business registers, and a company can usually choose among several of them.
Before issuing a code, the issuer checks the company’s details against the business register. It then checks the data again every year, which is why an LEI has to be renewed annually for a fee.
After the 2008 financial crisis, regulators found they could not quickly see who was exposed to whom, and the G20 called for a single global identifier. The Financial Stability Board then created GLEIF in 2014 to run the system. GLEIF is a non-profit foundation based in Basel, Switzerland. It never assigns codes itself, but accredits the issuers, monitors the quality of their data and keeps all LEIs in one searchable database.
Why Financial Firms Ask for an LEI
The request almost always comes from regulation rather than the bank’s own policy. In the EU, a bank or broker must report every trade in listed shares, bonds or ETFs to its regulator and name a company client by its LEI. Without the code, it may not carry out new trades for the company.
Derivatives are reported with each party’s LEI too, so a bank usually asks for one before agreeing an FX forward that fixes an exchange rate in advance. Many crypto platforms ask company clients for an LEI as well. Our article on why brokers ask for an LEI covers the investment rules in more detail.
Private individuals investing their own savings do not need an LEI, and an everyday business account used for payments normally works without one too.
What to Do When the Request Arrives
Start by searching the GLEIF database for your company’s name or registration number. A code may already exist, for example from an earlier investment account or currency contract. If the record shows the status LAPSED, the company keeps that code and only needs to renew it.
If there is no record, the company needs a new LEI. The application data has to match the business register entry exactly, down to the spelling of the name and address, because the issuer compares the two. Once the code is issued, pass it on to the bank or broker, and they can proceed.
Getting Your LEI Through Eesti Firma
Enter your company’s registration number in our LEI application form, and its details load automatically from the business register, even for companies registered outside Estonia. Then choose for how many years the code should stay active and pay by card, PayPal or another method offered at checkout. Our team reviews the application and sends it to WM Datenservice, a GLEIF-accredited issuer in Frankfurt. The code then reaches you by email, in most cases within one or two working days.
If you are not sure the bank means an LEI at all, send us its message and we will tell you which number it needs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Some banks and brokers offer to order a code on the company’s behalf, but that is not the only route. A company can get an LEI from an accredited issuer that serves its country or through a service like ours.
Yes. An LEI is a global code, so banks and brokers abroad accept it, whichever accredited issuer assigned it.
