FIGI — Financial Instrument Global Identifier
A 12-character open identifier for a financial instrument. Unlike ISIN it exists at several levels: a share-class FIGI covers the security everywhere, while composite and venue-level FIGIs identify it on a specific exchange.
- Standard
- Open standard (Object Management Group)
- Length
- 12 characters
- Check digit
- Modulus-10 variant over the first 11 characters
- Answers
- What + where — the instrument at a venue
- Steward
- OMG standard, issued by Bloomberg as registration authority; free to use
- Authoritative registry
- OpenFIGI
- Licensing
- Open — free to use and redistribute
- Coverage in our dataset
- 107 of 121 covered companies
Anatomy of the code
| Part | In the example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Positions 1–2 | BB | Certified provider prefix (BBG for the Bloomberg-issued space) |
| Position 3 | G | Always 'G' — reserved marker that distinguishes FIGIs from other codes |
| Positions 4–11 | 001S5N8V | Random, meaningless by design: FIGIs carry no embedded information |
| Position 12 | 8 | Check digit |
Validate one now
The validator on the Identifiers page recognises FIGI automatically and checks its check digit in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.
Open the validator with FIGI example
Questions
What is a FIGI?
A 12-character open identifier for a financial instrument. Unlike ISIN it exists at several levels: a share-class FIGI covers the security everywhere, while composite and venue-level FIGIs identify it on a specific exchange.
Is FIGI free to use?
Yes. FIGI is an open standard and OpenFIGI provides free mapping — this is the main practical difference from CUSIP and SEDOL, which are licensed. Finance Foundation publishes FIGIs precisely because they can be redistributed.
Why do FIGIs look random?
By design. The standard deliberately avoids embedding meaning in the code, because embedded meaning (country, issuer, asset class) goes stale when companies redomicile, merge or change structure.
Which FIGI level should I store?
For company-level analysis store the share-class FIGI, which survives venue changes. For execution and settlement you need the venue-level FIGI, because that is what identifies the instrument on the specific market.
The other identifiers
Every financial fact needs four resolutions: who (LEI), what (ISIN/FIGI/CUSIP/SEDOL), where (MIC) and in what unit (ISO 4217). The Standards page shows how they fit together; Identifiers resolves them against our data. seed-0.6 · 2026-08-29.