Permanent Account Number

Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit unique alphanumeric number issued by the Income Tax Department. PAN is issued in the form of a laminated plastic card as given below (commonly known as PAN card):

Now we shall discuss on the structure of the ten characters of PAN. For this purpose we shall take an illustrative PAN as given below :

Out of the first five characters, the first three characters represent the alphabetic series running from AAA to ZZZ.

The fourth character of PAN represents the status of the PAN holder.

“P” stands for Individual
“C” stands for Company
“H” stands for Hindu Undivided Family (HUF)
“A” stands for Association of Persons (AOP)
“B” stands for Body of Individuals (BOI)
“G” stands for Government Agency
“J” stands for Artificial Juridical Person
“L” stands for Local Authority
“E” stands for Limited Liability Partnership
“F” stands for Firm
“T” stands for Trust

Fifth character of PAN represents the first character of the PAN holder’s last name/surname in case of an individual. In case of non-individual PAN holders fifth character represents the first character of PAN holder’s name.

Next four characters are sequential numbers running from 0001 to 9999

Last character, i.e., the tenth character is an alphabetic check digit