Which payment gateways or APIs provide BIN/IIN lookup to check a card's 3-D Secure enrollment?

1. BIN lookup APIs: fast issuer metadata, not definitive 3DS status

A large market of BIN/IIN lookup services returns issuer, brand, card type and country by the card’s leading digits — examples include HandyAPI (free BIN/IIN lookup) ^[1], binlist ^[2], Neutrino ^[3], Bincodes (p1_s5/p1_s6), API Ninjas ^[12], APILayer ^[5] and community free services (freebinchecker) ^[13]. These APIs are designed for fraud prevention and routing decisions but typically provide static metadata about the BIN/IIN rather than a live scheme/issuer 3DS enrollment check ^{[1] [2] [3] [5]}.

2. Why a BIN lookup alone cannot guarantee 3DS enrollment

3‑D Secure enrollment is managed at the scheme/issuer level and often requires a runtime “Check Enrollment” with the scheme directory or an MPI (Merchant Plug‑In). Documentation and provider guides show that the enrollment decision uses directory services and real‑time responses — not only BIN tables (Apata/Thredd explains the scheme looks up a 3DS provider and checks BIN ranges) ^[7]. Verifone and other gateway docs also show VEReq/Check Enrollment messages that return an enrollment status or an attempted/stand‑in result ^[14].

3. Use MPI / 3DS providers when you need a live enrollment result

If your goal is to know whether a specific PAN will trigger a 3DS flow, you must call an MPI/3DS enrollment endpoint. 3dsecure.io provides an enrolled endpoint to check a card’s 3DS enrollment in real time (example API call and response in docs) ^[6]. Paysafe, Telr and other gateways document “perform an enrollment lookup” flows that return challenge URLs, frictionless outcomes or enrollment flags needed to proceed with authentication ^{[8] [15] [11]}. Braintree explicitly states it performs a 3DS Lookup during checkout and uses the issuer’s response to decide authentication steps ^[10].

4. Payment gateways that combine BIN checks and 3DS workflows

Some PSPs/gateways bundle BIN validation with 3DS commerce flows so merchants don’t have to stitch services together. Adyen’s documentation explains enrolling cards and using risk‑based decisions and OOB flows while using BIN as part of the 3DS process ^[9]. QuickStream/Westpac checks whether a card is enrolled for EMV 3DS and surfaces a threeDS2AuthRequired flag in its token response ^[16]. These platforms use BIN info as one input but rely on scheme/issuer lookups for enrollment ^{[9] [16]}.

5. Tradeoffs: static BIN data vs. real‑time scheme checks

BIN databases are fast, inexpensive and useful for routing and basic fraud heuristics (card country vs. billing address, brand detection) — services advertise frequent updates and large datasets (Neutrino claims ~2.5M records and 8‑digit BIN support) ^[3]. But static BIN tables cannot replace the scheme’s directory or an MPI for enrollment, which can return statuses like Y (enrolled), N (not enrolled), A (attempted/stand‑in) or provide ACS challenge URLs (Verifone/Telr/3DS specs) ^{[14] [11] [6]}. Relying solely on BIN tables risks false negatives/positives for 3DS decisions ^[7].

6. Practical recommendation for engineers and product teams

If you only need issuer metadata or quick fraud heuristics, integrate a reliable BIN/IIN API (HandyAPI, binlist, APILayer, Neutrino, Bincodes) ^{[1] [2] [5] [3] [4]}. If your objective is to determine whether a PAN will require 3DS or to obtain challenge URLs/ACS info, implement a 3DS enroll/check flow via an MPI or your PSP’s 3DS API (3dsecure.io, Paysafe, Adyen, Braintree, Cardinal/Apata, Telr) ^{[6] [8] [9] [10] [7] [11]}. Many merchants use both: BIN lookup for routing and heuristics, MPI enrollment check for the final authentication decision ^{[8] [7]}.

Limitations and sources: This summary relies exclusively on the provided API docs and vendor pages. For specific SLAs, pricing, or regional availability compare individual provider docs (examples cited above) before selection ^{[1] [2] [3] [6] [10] [8] [9] [7]}.