What is a Norma 19 file?
Norma 19 (Spanish Banking Association’s “Cuaderno 19”) is the legacy Spanish bank format for sending direct debits to a bank as a plain-text file. It coexists with SEPA and most Spanish banks still accept it, especially the 19.14, 19.15 and 19.44 variants.
TL;DR
- Plain ASCII file with fixed-length records (162 chars per line).
- Three levels: presenter header, batch headers, debit records, totals.
- Active variants: 19.14 (generic), 19.15 (extended concept), 19.44 (B2B).
- Most banks are migrating to SEPA XML but still accept Norma 19 and convert it internally.
- You can convert Norma 19 to SEPA XML in seconds.
File structure
| Record | Description |
|---|---|
01 |
Presenter (creditor) header |
02 |
Batch header |
06 |
Individual debit record |
08 |
Batch totals |
09 |
Grand totals |
Each line is 162 ASCII characters and ends with CRLF.
Variants
- 19.14: most common. Includes name, VAT, debtor IBAN, amount and mandate ID.
- 19.15: like 19.14 but with an extended 140-char concept field per debit.
- 19.44: for B2B direct debits.
Why migrate to SEPA XML?
- Norma 19 is AEB-proprietary — only Spanish banks accept it.
- SEPA XML (
pain.008) is standardised by ISO 20022 and accepted across SEPA. - It allows richer metadata (payment categories, mandate types, end-to-end identifiers).
How to convert Norma 19 to SEPA XML
- Upload your
.txtor.q19file to GenerateSEPA. - Pick the originator profile (VAT, IBAN, creditor identifier).
- Download the resulting SEPA XML.
- Upload it in your bank’s online banking under “Batches” or “Payments by file”.
Common errors
- Encoding other than ASCII/ISO-8859-1: the bank rejects the file.
- Missing
09grand-totals record. - Amounts in cents that do not match the declared total.
Conclusion
Norma 19 is still useful to bridge legacy systems but migrating to SEPA XML gives you interoperability and richer data. Do it in seconds at GenerateSEPA.
