PAN is an identification number assigned to all taxpayers in India. It is a 10-letter alpha-numeric number, and each character represents specific information of the cardholder.

Issuing Authority: Income Tax Department, Govt. of India

The PAN (or PAN number) is a ten-character long alpha-numeric unique identifier.

The PAN structure is as follows: AAAPL1234C

The first five characters are letters (in uppercase by default), followed by four numerals, and the last (tenth) character is a letter.

The first three characters of the code are three letters forming a sequence of alphabets letters from AAA to ZZZ.

The fourth character identifies the type of holder of the card. Each holder type is uniquely defined by a letter from the list below:
A — Association of persons (AOP)
B — Body of Individuals (BOI)
C — Company
F — Firm
G — Government
H — HUF (Hindu Undivided Family)
L — Local authority
J — Artificial juridical person
P — Individual (Proprietor)
T — Trust (AOP)
E – LLP (Limited Liability Partnership)

The fifth character of the PAN is the first character of either:
i) of the surname or last name of the person, in the case of a "personal" PAN card, where the fourth character is "P" or
ii) of the name of the entity, trust, society, or organization in the case of a company/HUF/Firm/AOP/trust/BOI/local authority/artificial judicial person/government, where the fourth character is "C", "H", "F", "A", "T", "B", "L", "J", "G".

The last (tenth) character is an alphabetic digit used as a check-sum to verify the validity of that current code.