About this tool

PAN Format Validator

Validate Indian PAN number format, normalize entries, identify holder type, mask output, and check bulk PAN lists locally.

The PAN Format Validator checks an Indian Permanent Account Number against the official 10-character pattern — five letters, four digits, one letter, as in ABCDE1234F — and decodes what those characters mean. It reads the fourth character as the holder type (P for an individual, C for a company, H for a HUF, F for a firm or LLP, and so on), the fifth as the first letter of the holder's surname or name, and it can mask, normalise and bulk-check whole lists. It is a format and structure check for finance, HR and onboarding teams, not a lookup against the Income Tax Department's records.

How to use PAN Format Validator

1. 1

   Open PAN Format Validator on AltFTool — it loads instantly in your browser.

2. 2

   Type a PAN into the PAN number field on the Single PAN tab, or switch to Bulk List and paste one per line; Sample loads ABCDE1234F and Clear empties the box.

3. 3

   Read Result Details — Normalized, Masked, Holder type from the fourth character and Name initial — plus a listed issue for every rule that broke, such as digits in the first five positions.

4. 4

   Press Summary or Copy PANs for the clipboard, or CSV to download pan-format-validation.csv with Input, Normalized PAN, Masked PAN, Status, Holder Type and Issues columns.

Why use PAN Format Validator

• Tells you which rule broke

  Instead of a bare invalid flag it lists the specific failures — wrong length, digits in the first five positions, an unrecognised holder-type letter in position four — so the entry can be corrected.

• Decodes the structure

  It names the holder type from the fourth character and shows the name initial, series and numeric block separately, so you can sanity-check a PAN against the person or entity it belongs to.

• Bulk lists and CSV out

  Paste PANs separated by newlines, commas, semicolons, pipes or tabs and export the whole verdict table — normalised value, masked value, status, holder type and issues — as a CSV.

Common use cases

• You are cleaning a vendor or payroll spreadsheet and need to find which of a few hundred pasted PANs are malformed before they reach a TDS return and get rejected.
• A KYC form came back with a PAN typed as lowercase with dashes, and you want it normalised to the canonical uppercase 10-character form before you file it.
• You need to quote a customer's PAN in a support ticket or screenshot and want a masked version such as AB***1234F instead of the full number.

Frequently asked questions