FIGI Explained: The Open Financial Instrument Identifier

Last updated: July 2026 · 10 min read

A FIGI (Financial Instrument Global Identifier) is a 12-character code that uniquely identifies a financial instrument — not just stocks and bonds, but loans, derivatives, and crypto assets too. Unlike ISIN or CUSIP, FIGI was built from day one to be completely free and open: anyone can use or redistribute it without a license fee.

1. What Is FIGI?

FIGI is a 12-character code originally created by Bloomberg in 2009 as the Bloomberg Global Identifier (BBGID). In 2014, Bloomberg contributed the standard to the Object Management Group (OMG) — the non-profit standards body also behind UML — which adopted it as an open, vendor-neutral standard and renamed it FIGI. The codes didn't change: a security's old BBGID and its FIGI are identical.

FIGI identifies almost anything held as a financial instrument — equities, bonds, loans, indices, currency pairs, OTC derivatives, and, more recently, crypto assets — including instruments that never receive an ISIN or CUSIP.

From BBGID to FIGI

The OMG Architecture Board granted FIGI "approved status" in September 2015, cementing it as a formal industry standard rather than a proprietary Bloomberg code. It's also recognized as a US national standard, ANSI/X9.145.

2. FIGI Structure: Anatomy of the Code

Every FIGI follows the same fixed 12-character format:

• Characters 1–3 — always "BBG." The first two identify Bloomberg as the OMG-certified issuing provider; the third, "G," marks it as a Global identifier.
• Characters 4–11 — eight randomly assigned alphanumeric characters. Vowels are excluded so a FIGI never accidentally spells a word.
• Character 12 — a check digit. Calculated with a Modulus 10 "Double Add Double" formula, a cousin of the Luhn algorithm used for ISINs, it catches typos and transcription errors.

FIGI:   B B G 0 0 0 B 9 X R Y 4
        ─────   ───────────── ─
          │             │       │
          │             │       └─ Check digit
          │             │
          │             └─ 8 random alphanumeric chars (no vowels)
          │
          └─ "BBG" = Bloomberg (provider) + Global

Unlike an ISIN, a FIGI carries no embedded meaning — no country code, nothing decodable by eye. It's a random reference key pointing to a metadata record held in the OpenFIGI database.

3. Governance: The OMG Standard & Bloomberg's Role

FIGI isn't a Bloomberg product the way a Bloomberg Terminal is — it's an open standard governed by the Object Management Group (OMG), an international non-profit standards body founded in 1989. OMG sets and maintains the rules for how FIGIs are structured and allocated.

Bloomberg holds the role of Registration Authority (RA) — the certified provider that issues new FIGIs, maintains the registry, and runs the free lookup service at openfigi.com. OMG owns the standard; Bloomberg operates the registry.

4. Free and Open: Why It Matters

The property that sets FIGI apart from every identifier here is simple: it's free, no strings attached. As an OMG open-data standard, anyone can look up, store, redistribute, or embed a FIGI in a commercial product without a license fee.

5. FIGI Granularity: Share Class vs Composite vs Exchange

Most identifiers assign one code per security. FIGI instead assigns codes at three levels of granularity, letting you choose between a global view of an instrument or a specific trading-venue view.

• Share Class FIGI — broadest level, one class of shares globally, aggregating every composite and listing beneath it.
• Composite FIGI — aggregates all trading venues within one country or currency market.
• Exchange-level FIGI — most granular: a separate FIGI per listing on a specific exchange.

A position-aggregation system usually wants the Share Class or Composite FIGI, so listings of the same stock roll up together. Execution analysis needs the exchange-level FIGI instead.

6. The OpenFIGI API: Free Identifier Mapping

Bloomberg runs OpenFIGI as a free public mapping service: take an identifier you already have — an ISIN, CUSIP, SEDOL, or ticker — and map it to the corresponding FIGI, or the reverse.

Developers call the mapping API with a JSON array of {idType, idValue} pairs — e.g. {"idType":"ID_ISIN","idValue":"US0378331005"} — and get back matching FIGI records with ticker, exchange code, and related composite/share-class FIGIs. It's free; a free key just raises the rate limit. It's the standard way apps resolve an ISIN to a ticker programmatically.

For a one-off lookup, our Financial ID Translator does the same ISIN → FIGI → ticker mapping with no code required.

7. FIGI vs ISIN vs CUSIP

How FIGI stacks up against the two identifiers most investors already know. For more on ISIN, see our complete ISIN guide.

8. When to Use Which Identifier

• Use ISIN for the identifier regulators and clearing houses (Euroclear, DTCC, Clearstream) expect for settlement and cross-border reporting.
• Use CUSIP when working specifically within US/Canadian market infrastructure.
• Use FIGI for free programmatic mapping, when the instrument has no ISIN or CUSIP (loans, OTC derivatives, crypto), or when you need venue-level granularity.
• Most institutional systems store more than one — FIGI is often the "hub" identifier linking ISIN, CUSIP, SEDOL, and ticker together, since it's free to redistribute alongside the rest.

9. Adoption: Regulators and Crypto

FIGI's free-and-open status has made it attractive to US regulators. The SEC accepts or requires it in several contexts: Form 13F (institutional holdings), Form N-PX (proxy voting, when CUSIP and ISIN aren't available), and Form SHO short-sale reporting, which requires FIGI in two data tables — with the SEC explicitly noting FIGIs are provided free of charge. The CFTC added FIGI to its Joint Form PF and Large Trader Reporting guidebook as a free, open-source alternative, and Treasury's Office of Financial Research accepts it for its bilateral repo reporting rule.

FIGI has expanded into digital assets too: starting in 2021, Bloomberg partnered with data provider Kaiko to issue FIGIs for crypto assets — at the asset, currency-pair, and trading-platform level — for a market with no prior global identifier standard.

10. Frequently Asked Questions