Under GST when your GST registration application gets approved then you get registration certificate in REG-06 mentioning registration number which is called as GSTIN (Goods and Services Tax Identification Number) and practically this GSTIN is also called as GST Number or GST Registration Number.
GSTIN (Goods and Services Tax Identification Number) is 15 characters alpha-numeric number (PAN based registration number) which is allotted at the time of issuing registration certification and in registration certificate, registration number (GSTIN or GST registration number) is mentioned on the first page of registration certificate (RC contains 3 pages).
GSTIN is PAN based 15 characters alpha numeric number where first 2 characters is state code or UT code which is state or UT of registered persons and as per census 2011, States and Union territories have been assigned state code, for instance state code allotted to Delhi is 07 that is why all GSTIN of registered persons in Delhi starts with 07, Uttar Pradesh’s state code is 09 that is why all GSTIN of registered persons in Uttar Pradesh starts with 09 etc.
Next 10 characters are PAN (Permanent account number is 10 digit alpha-numeric numbers) which you must have noticed in any GSTIN.
Next 2 (13th and 14th character) characters is entity code which says about number of registration in particular state, generally you must have noticed that 13th character is 1 but in few cases it can be 2, 3 etc. by looking at 13th character you can say about number of registration in particular state or union territory and 14th character by default is ‘Z’.
15th character is checksum character and this can be one of alphabets (any one from A to Z) or one of numeric (any one from 0 to 9) so 15th character can be either alphabetic or numeric.
GSTIN can also be TAN based but we will see TAN based registration number in some other article.
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