PAN

Validates an Indian Permanent Account Number (PAN): 10 characters — 5 letters, 4 digits, 1 letter. Lowercase input is accepted and normalised to uppercase. The 4th character is the entity code and is reported in parsed — it is not checked against the entity list: a 4th character that is not in the published list is reported as entity "Unknown" and the PAN is still valid. The canonical format example ABCDE1234F itself has 4th character D, which is not in the list.

Rules

Rule	Detail
Format	`^[A-Z]{5}[0-9]{4}[A-Z]$`
Length	Exactly 10 characters
4th character	Entity code: `P` `C` `H` `F` `A` `T` `B` `L` `J` `G` — reported, not enforced (anything else → entity `"Unknown"`, still valid)
Checksum	None — PAN has no checksum digit; only the format is checked

Holder types (4th character)

Code	Holder
`P`	Individual
`C`	Company
`H`	HUF
`F`	Firm
`A`	AOP
`T`	Trust
`B`	BODY
`L`	Local Authority
`J`	Artificial Juridical Person
`G`	Government

Any other 4th character is reported as entity "Unknown" and the PAN is still format-valid — ABCDE1234F (4th character D) is valid. INVALID_ENTITY is a reserved code for this case and is not emitted as of v0.2.0.

Usage

import { validatePan } from 'indycheck';

validatePan('AAAPL1234C');
// { ok: true, code: 'VALID', normalized: 'AAAPL1234C',
//   parsed: { entity: 'Individual', entity_code: 'P' } }

validatePan('abcpe1234f'); // ok: true — lowercase is normalised
validatePan('ABCDE1234F'); // ok: true — entity 'Unknown', still valid

from indycheck import validate_pan

r = validate_pan("AAAPL1234C")
print(r.parsed["entity"])  # Individual

use indycheck::validate_pan;

let r = validate_pan("AAAPL1234C");
assert_eq!(r.parsed.unwrap()["entity_code"], "P");

Examples

Input	Result	Code
`AAAPL1234C`	✅ Valid, individual	`VALID`
`ABCPE1234F`	✅ Valid, individual	`VALID`
`AAAPL1234c`	✅ Valid (normalised)	`VALID`
`ABCDE1234F`	✅ Valid, entity `"Unknown"` (`D` is not a listed holder type)	`VALID`
`AAAPL12345`	❌ Invalid — last char must be a letter	`INVALID_FORMAT`
`AAAPL123C`	❌ Invalid — 9 characters	`INVALID_LENGTH`
(empty)	❌ Invalid	`EMPTY`

Error codes

Code	Means
`EMPTY`	Nothing was passed in
`INVALID_LENGTH`	Not exactly 10 characters
`INVALID_FORMAT`	Doesn’t match 5 letters + 4 digits + 1 letter

INVALID_ENTITY is a reserved code for an unlisted 4th character — it is not emitted as of v0.2.0: an unlisted 4th character is reported as entity "Unknown" and the PAN is still valid.

Parsed output

On success, parsed contains:

{
  "entity": "Individual",
  "entity_code": "P"
}

Use entity_code to route users in a form — for example, ask companies (C) for a GSTIN next, and individuals (P) for their name as per PAN. When the 4th character is not in the published list, entity is "Unknown" (for example ABCDE1234F → { "entity": "Unknown", "entity_code": "D" }).