What is MICR? The magnetic line at the bottom of every check

What is MICR on a check?

MICR is the machine readable strip at the bottom of every US check. Federal Reserve Regulation CC defines the MICR line as the routing number, account number, check number, check amount and other information printed near the bottom of a check in magnetic ink, following the ANSI standard for placement and location of MICR printing.

The system dates from the 1950s. According to the TROY MICR handbook, the American Bankers Association adopted E-13B magnetic ink character recognition in 1958, and almost all US checks have carried it since. Reader sorter machines read each character at very high speed, so the characters must be printed to precise specifications.

What is the E-13B font?

E-13B is the typeface used for MICR in the United States. It has only fourteen characters: the ten digits and four special symbols. Each character has a distinctive shape so its magnetic signal cannot be confused with another.

You cannot type these symbols with a normal font. Check printing software uses a licensed MICR font that meets the ANSI character specifications. E-13B is not universal: the TROY handbook lists it for the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and others, while France, Spain and much of South America use a different MICR font called CMC 7.

What does each part of the MICR line hold?

The line is divided into fields by position, counted from the right edge. The MICR Gauge overview and the TROY handbook describe the same layout.

That is why business checks often show the check number to the left of the routing number, while personal checks show it after the account number. For how to read the two key numbers, see routing number vs account number.

Where must the MICR line sit on the check?

Placement is as important as the characters themselves. The TROY handbook, summarizing ANSI specifications, requires a clear band at least 5/8 inch high along the bottom edge. The bottom of the MICR characters should sit 3/16 inch above the edge, and all MICR printing falls inside a band about 1/4 inch high in the middle of the clear band.

Nothing else may print in the clear band: no signatures, logos, background patterns or stub text. Characters are spaced 0.125 inch apart, and skew is limited to 1.5 degrees. These tolerances are why checks come from specialized stock and software rather than a word processor. Our guide to check sizes and dimensions shows how the band fits each format.

Why does the ink have to be magnetic?

Reader sorters recognize characters by their magnetic signal, not their look. As Rosetta Technologies explains, code line data not printed in MICR ink cannot be read by check readers that rely on magnetic reading. Regulation CC also treats an item that has not been preprinted or post encoded in magnetic ink with the paying bank's routing number as a noncash item, which takes it outside the normal check collection rules.

This is the difference between a check printed with regular toner and one printed with MICR toner. If you print your own checks from blank stock, read MICR toner: do you need it to print your own checks.

Does MICR still matter now that checks are imaged?

Yes. Since the Check 21 Act, many checks travel as images, but the MICR data travels with them. The Federal Reserve's Check 21 FAQ describes electronic check records as including the MICR line data along with front and back images, and items can be rejected for failing image quality standards. Regulation CC requires a substitute check to bear a MICR line containing the information from the original check's MICR line.

In other words, the MICR data is part of every electronic check record. If it is wrong on the paper, it is wrong in the image file too, and the check can fall out of automated processing.

What happens when a MICR line is misprinted?

A misprinted line usually means a reject. The TROY handbook warns that a check that fails the MICR specification may be rejected by a reader sorter and processed by hand, and that banks commonly charge the customer a manual processing fee for each rejected check. Repeated problems can lead a bank to require you to fix your printing.

Common causes are the wrong font, regular toner, a line printed too high or too low, characters that are too light, a signature that drops into the clear band and paper that curls or tears. Check paper matters too: the handbook notes a check may pass through reader sorters as many as 30 times.

How do you check the MICR line on a proof?

When you approve a check proof, read the MICR line as carefully as the name. Use this list.

• Routing number has nine digits and sits between two transit symbols
• Account number matches your statement exactly
• Check number matches the starting number you chose
• On a business check, the serial number sits in the far left field
• The amount area at the far right is empty
• Nothing else prints in the bottom 5/8 inch

Preprinted laser checks solve most of these problems at once, because the printer lays down the MICR line in magnetic ink and your office printer adds only the date, payee and amount. Explore laser business checks if you print payments from QuickBooks, Xero or NetSuite, and see the check printing guide for the rest of the ordering decisions.