All about PAN Structure

Permanent Account Number (PAN) is a ten-digit alpha-numeric number, issued by the Income Tax Department. Each assessee (e.g., individual, firm, company, etc.) is issued a unique PAN.

PAN enables department to link all transactions of the ‘person’ with the department. These transactions include tax payments, TDS / TCS credits, returns of income / wealth / gift / FBT, specified transactions, correspondence, etc. PAN, thus, acts as an identifier for the ‘person’ with the tax department.

• PAN structure is as follows: AAAAA9999A. First five characters are letters, next four are numerals, last is a character letter
• If PAN does not follow the above structure, PAN will be shown as invalid
• The fourth character of the PAN must be one of the following, depending on the type of assessee:
  • C – Company
  • P – Person
  • H – HUF (Hindu Undivided Family)
  • F – Firm
  • A – Association of Persons (AOP)
  • T – AOP (Trust)
  • B – Body of Individuals (BOI)
  • L – Local Authority
  • J – Artificial Judicial Person
  • G – Government
• The fifth character of the PAN is the first character of the surname / last name of the person (in case of personal PAN card, the fourth character is “P”) or of the name of Entity / Trust / Society / Organisation