What does the 4th character of a PAN mean?

The 4th character identifies the type of PAN holder. P means Individual (Person), C means Company, H means Hindu Undivided Family, F means Firm or Partnership, A means Association of Persons, T means Trust, B means Body of Individuals, L means Local Authority, J means Artificial Juridical Person, and G means Government.

What does the 5th character of a PAN mean?

For an individual, the 5th character is the first letter of your surname (last name). For a non-individual entity, it is the first letter of the entity's name. So in AAAPL1234C, the L means the holder's surname or entity name begins with L.

What do the first three letters of a PAN signify?

Characters 1–3 are an alphabetic series running from AAA to ZZZ, assigned sequentially by the Income Tax Department. They carry no personal meaning — they simply mark which printing batch or series your card belongs to.

Is my PAN sent anywhere when I use this tool?

No. The decoder is entirely privacy-first. All processing happens locally in your browser using JavaScript. Your PAN never leaves your device — there are no network requests at all.

Does this tool validate a PAN against the Income Tax Department database?

No. It validates only the publicly documented structural format (AAAAA9999A — 5 letters, 4 digits, 1 letter) and decodes the meaning of each segment. It cannot confirm whether a PAN is live or linked to a specific person in the IT Department's records.

What is the correct format of a PAN number?

A valid PAN is exactly 10 characters in the pattern AAAAA9999A — five uppercase letters, then four digits, then one final letter. Any PAN that does not match this pattern is malformed and will be rejected by the tool.

Can two people have a PAN with the same first five letters?

Yes. The first five characters are not unique on their own. Uniqueness comes from the four-digit running sequence (characters 6–9) and the final check character, so many holders can share the same series, holder-type and name-initial prefix.

India PAN Card Decoder — Validate & Decode Your PAN

India PAN decoder

A PAN (Permanent Account Number) is the 10-character alphanumeric ID issued by India’s Income Tax Department to every taxpayer. This decoder breaks a PAN into its five meaningful parts and tells you what each one represents — useful for finance teams verifying KYC documents, accountants checking client records, or anyone curious what their own card encodes. Paste a PAN and the result appears instantly.

How it works

The tool first checks the PAN against the official pattern AAAAA9999A — five letters, four digits, one letter — to catch typos. It then splits the 10 characters:

Characters 1–3 — the alphabetic series (AAA–ZZZ), assigned sequentially.
Character 4 — the holder type. The tool looks this letter up in a fixed table (P, C, H, F, A, T, B, L, J, G).
Character 5 — the first letter of the holder’s surname (individual) or entity name.
Characters 6–9 — a running four-digit number from 0001 to 9999.
Character 10 — an alphabetic check character generated by the department.

Nothing is verified against any live database — only the documented structure is decoded.

Example

Take the sample PAN AAAPL1234C:

Segment	Value	Meaning
1–3 series	AAA	Sequential series code
4 holder type	P	Individual (Person)
5 name initial	L	Surname begins with L
6–9 sequence	1234	Running number
10 check	C	Check character

So this PAN belongs to an individual whose surname starts with L.

Holder type codes (4th character)

Code	Holder type
P	Individual (Person)
C	Company
H	Hindu Undivided Family (HUF)
F	Firm / Partnership
A	Association of Persons (AOP)
T	Trust
B	Body of Individuals (BOI)
L	Local Authority
J	Artificial Juridical Person
G	Government

Privacy: everything runs in your browser. Your PAN is never uploaded, stored, or sent to any server, and the tool does not query the Income Tax Department.