Is an MT705 a letter of credit?

No. It is a pre-advice: the full credit follows in an MT700. Documents cannot be presented under a pre-advice, and the advising bank tells the beneficiary so.

How does the MT700 refer to the pre-advice?

Field 23 of the MT700 starts with PREADV, a slash and a reference to the pre-advice, often its date.

Category 7: Documentary credits, guarantees and standby letters of credit

MT705 Pre-Advice of a Documentary Credit

Written and maintained by ZagTrader. Last reviewed 21 October 2026. How this page is sourced and checked

The MT705 is a short notice from the issuing bank to the advising bank that a documentary credit is coming, with its main terms: form, number, expiry, parties and amount. It is not the credit itself: the full credit follows in an MT700, which the issuing bank must send without delay.

Message type: MT705
Category: 7
Status: In the current standard
ISO 20022: No direct equivalent

What MT705 is used for

Exporters sometimes need early comfort that a credit is on its way, for example to start production or book shipping space. The issuing bank can then pre-advise the credit with an MT705 and send the operative MT700 later. The advising bank passes the pre-advice to the beneficiary as information only.

The pre-advice is not an operative credit instrument, so the beneficiary cannot present documents under it. When the MT700 arrives, its field 23 (Reference to Pre-Advice) points back to the pre-advice with the code PREADV. Since the November 2021 release a standby letter of credit can no longer be issued with the MT700 family, including the MT705; standbys use the MT760.

Sent by: The issuing bank
Sent to: The advising bank

Fields

This is a catalogue entry: the field-by-field structure is not shown here because we publish structures only where we have checked them against public sources. Paste an MT705 into the parser to see each field decoded with its tag, name and value.

Decode an MT705 in the parser

ISO 20022

No ISO 20022 equivalent in general use. Documentary credit messages in category 7 were not part of the November 2025 move of cross-border payment instructions to ISO 20022 and are still exchanged as MT on Swift.

MT705 questions

Is an MT705 a letter of credit?: No. It is a pre-advice: the full credit follows in an MT700. Documents cannot be presented under a pre-advice, and the advising bank tells the beneficiary so.
How does the MT700 refer to the pre-advice?: Field 23 of the MT700 starts with PREADV, a slash and a reference to the pre-advice, often its date.

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