Albania In
Albania, the Personal Number () is issued by the Central Civic Registry Service (
Interior Ministry). The coding structure and algorithm are regulated by law and a decision of the
Council of Ministers (no. 827, dated 11 December 2003). From 2004 to 2007, the Identity Number was referred to as the Citizen Identity Number ( (NISH)). After 2007, it was known simply as the Identity Number (). The current nomenclature was adopted in 2012. The personal number is a unique personal identification number of 10 characters in the format YYMMDDSSSC, where YYMMDD indicates the date of birth and sex (for males MM is 01–12, for females 50 is added to the month of birth so that MM is 51–62; an additional 30 is added for any sex if they are not an Albanian citizen), SSS is a sequence number of persons born on the same date (001–999), and C is a checksum letter (A–W). The YY part of the date of birth is calculated from the following table: e.g. For people born in the year 2003, YY would be K3.
Austria In
Austria there are two schemes to identify individuals: ;Sector-Specific Personal Identifier: The Sector-Specific Personal Identifier (ssPIN) tries to do away with the problems of the SSN. Its legal foundation is the Austrian E-Government Act, and it is derived from the (CRR). Its specification is related with the . Its computation (specification) is a two-stage process: The CCR ID is encoded into the Source Identification Number (Source PIN) with a symmetrical crypto-function. This is again one-way encoded into the ssPIN per sector of governmental activity. For the storage of SourcePINs is not limited to citizen cards, and an application cannot convert a ssPIN from one sector to the ssPIN from applications of other sectors, the link-up of data of sectors by PINs is constricted. However, there is a legal exception to this rule: applications may query for and store ssPINs from other sectors if they are encrypted in a way that makes them only usable in the target application. This enables the application to communicate across sectors. ;Sample values: • CCR-ID: 000247681888 (12-digit) • SourcePIN: MDEyMzQ1Njc4OWFiY2RlZg== (24 bytes base64) • ssPIN(BW): MswQO/UhO5RG+nR+klaOTsVY+CU= (28 bytes base64) • BW (Bauen + Wohnen) is the public sector related to "construction and habitation". • There are approximately 30 sectors like health, taxes, statistics, and security.
Belgium In
Belgium every citizen has a National Register Number, which is created by using the citizen's
date of birth (encoded in six digits), followed by a serial number (three digits) and a
checksum (two digits). The serial number is used so that men get the odd numbers, while women get the even numbers; thus, there can be only 500 men or women on each day. The national number is unique to each person and in that capacity used by most government institutions; however, because one can immediately read the date of birth and the sex of the numbers' holder and because it is the key in most government databases (including that of the tax administration, the social security, and others), it is considered a
privacy-sensitive number. For that reason, although it is put on the
identity card by default, with the old ID cards a citizen could request that this would not be done. With the newer Digital ID cards that Belgium is rolling out, this is no longer possible, since the National Number is used as the serial number for the private
cryptography keys on the card.
Bosnia and Herzegovina Each citizen receives 13 number
Unique Master Citizen Number () upon birth (from 2001 official name is
Unique Master Number but the acronym
JMBG is still in use). Unique Master Citizen Number comprises 13 digits in DDMMYYY RR XXX C format. DD/MM/YYY represents citizens birth date. RR indicates one of 10 Bosnian regions (10: Banja Luka, 11: Bihać, 12: Doboj, 13: Goražde, 14: Livno, 15: Mostar, 16: Prijedor, 17: Sarajevo, 18: Tuzla, 19: Zenica) where the citizen was born. XXX is a unique sequential number where 000 – 499 is used for males and 500 – 999 for females. The final number is a check-sum. Foreign citizens born or residing in
Bosnia & Herzegovina can also receive a Unique Master Citizen Number (UMCN). The RR sequence foreign nationals is 01. Upon gaining Bosnian citizenship, a former foreign national can request new UMCN where the RR part is represented by the region where they were first registered.
Bulgaria Every citizen or permanent resident of
Bulgaria has a unique 10-digit
Uniform Civil Number (, usually abbreviated as ЕГН,
EGN), generated from the person's
date of birth (encoded in six digits in the form YYMMDD), followed by a three-digit serial number and a single-digit
checksum. The last digit of serial number indicates gender: odd numbers are used for females and even numbers for males. For persons born prior to 1900, the month identifier (third and fourth digits) is increased by 20 (e.g. 952324XXXX denotes a person born on 24 March 1895). Similarly, 40 is added to denote that a person was born after 1999 (e.g. 054907XXXX denotes a person born on 7 September 2005). EGNs were introduced in 1977 and are used in virtually all dealings with public service agencies, and often with private businesses. EGNs are also printed on Bulgarian identity cards and passports, under the heading "ЕГН/Personal number".
Croatia In
Croatia, the Personal Identification Number ( (OIB)), is used for identifying the citizens and legal persons in many government and civilian systems. The OIB-system was introduced on 1 January 2009, and replaced the old
JMBG system, renamed to
Master Citizen Number (Croatian: Matični broj građana (MBG)) in 2002, that was used in former
Yugoslavia. The OIB consists of eleven digits; ten random digits and one control digit.
Czech Republic Czech Republic and
Slovakia uses a system called Birth Number (Czech/Slovak: rodné číslo (RČ)). The system was introduced in the former
Czechoslovakia. The form is YYXXDD/SSSC, where XX=MM (month of birth) for male (numbers 01–12) and XX=MM+50 for female (numbers 51–62), SSS is a serial number separating persons born on the same date and C is a check digit, but for people born before 1 January 1954 the form is without the check digit – YYXXDD/SSS. This enables the system to work until the year 2054. The whole number is usually divisible by 11. The system is raising privacy concerns, since the age and the sex of the bearer can be decoded from the number. Therefore, the birth number is considered a sensitive piece of personal information. In a law that took place in the year 2004, a failsafe system has been implemented, where in case all valid serial numbers get depleted for a day, the number 20 gets added to the value of XX. This means that XX can get up to 32 for males, and 82 for females.
Denmark A Personal Identification Number (Da.
personnummer In the 1980s, the electronic system was exported to Kuwait, Jamaica, Malaysia, Thailand, Romania, Cyprus, Estonia, Latvia, Slovakia, and Saint Petersburg. The CPR number is a ten-digit number with the format DDMMYY-SSSS, where DDMMYY is the date of birth and SSSS is a sequence number. The first digit of the sequence number encodes the century of birth (so that centenarians are distinguished from infants, 0–4 in odd centuries, 5–9 in even centuries), and the last digit of the sequence number is odd for males and even for females. Prior to 2007, the last digit was also a check digit such that less than 240 SSSS values were available for any given combination of gender and date of birth, but due to an administrative practice of assigning 1 January and similar dates for immigrants with unknown date of birth, any SSSS value consistent with gender and century of birth may now be issued, even for birth dates prior to 2007. Companies and other taxable non-humans are issued an eight-digit "CVR" number which is a mostly sequential number, there is no defined rule preventing the issuance of a CVR number with the same digits as a CPR number of an unrelated person, so the type of number must always be indicated, but CPR are always 10-digit and CVR 8-digit. VAT registration numbers for Danish companies are simply "DK" followed by the CVR number, but far from all CVR numbered entities are VAT registered (companies with no need for a VAT number, such as holding companies, typically do not request a VAT registration for their CVR). Government entities are numbered in a variety of ways, but since 2003 all government entities (however small) now have EAN numbers for billing purposes. Some Government entities also have CVR numbers. Only one Government Entity (the Queen) has a CPR number. The CPR number gives government agencies access to state-controlled databases with information about the person. The information includes: The person's marital status and spouse, parents, children, current and former addresses, the cars the person has owned, the criminal record and other information about the person. Foreigners who are not eligible to get a CPR-number, but who need one, includes persons who have witnessed a crime, persons who have been charged with a crime, or are victims of a crime. These persons are registered with a CPR-number with the format: DDMMYY-XXXX where XXXX are four letters instead of four numbers.
Estonia In Estonia, a
Personal Identification Code (, abbreviated as
IK) is formed on the basis of the sex and date of birth of a person. It allows the identification of the person and is used by government and other systems where identification is required, as well as by digital signatures using the national ID-card and its associated certificates. The code consists of 11 digits, generally given without any whitespace or other delimiters, in the form GYYMMDDSSSC. The first digit, G, encodes the person's sex and century of birth: odd numbers for male, even numbers for female; 1 or 2 for 19th century, 3 or 4 for 20th century, 5 or 6 for 21st century. The next digits, YYMMDD, encode the person's date of birth, including the last two digits of the year. The next three digits, SSS, are a serial number distinguishing persons born on the same date. Prior to 2013, there were separate ranges for each hospital issuing the codes, but this system was deprecated on 1 January 2013. The final digit, C, is a
check digit, calculated from the previous digits using the modulo 11 algorithm.
European Economic Area/Switzerland Within the
European Economic Area and
Switzerland, a card known as the
European Health Insurance Card is issued to any resident who so wishes, proving the right of health care anywhere in the area. This card lists a code called "Identification Number", which in some cases may be the national identification number of the residence country, for Germany the health insurance number.
Finland In
Finland, the
Personal Identity Code ( (abbreviated as
hetu), ), also known as
Personal Identification Number, was introduced in 1964 and it is used for identifying the citizens in government and many corporate and other transactions. It consists of eleven characters of the form DDMMYYCZZZQ, where DDMMYY is the day, month and year of birth, C the century sign, ZZZ the individual number and Q the control character (checksum). The sign for the century is either + (1800–1899); -, U, V, W, X, or Y(1900–1999); or A, B, C, D, E, F (2000–2099). The individual number ZZZ distinguishes persons with the same date of birth from each other and it is odd for males and even for females and for people born in Finland or permanent residents its range is 002–899. Numbers 900–999 are used for temporary personal identification, for example in hospitals, when an official ID is not known or has not yet been given to a child born. Temporary IDs are not logged in the Finnish Population Information System. An example of a valid code for a fictional female born on 13 October 1952 is 131052-308T. The control character, either a number or a letter, is determined by the remainder of DDMMYYZZZ divided by 31, i.e. by dropping the century sign and calculating the resulting nine-digit number
mod 31. The corresponding character is then picked from the string "0123456789ABCDEFHJKLMNPRSTUVWXY" (ambiguous letters G, I, O, Q, and Z are not used). For remainders below ten, the remainder itself is the control character whereas 10 corresponds to A, 11=B, 12=C, ending up with 30=Y. In this example, 131052308 mod 31 = 25 = T. A Personal Identity Code is given to every Finnish citizen born in Finland. Foreign citizens whose residence in Finland is permanent or exceeds one year are also issued a personal identity code by law. The Personal Identity Code is a means to distinguish between individuals having the same name. It can be found in some public documents (such as the deed of purchase of real estate). Therefore, knowing the code should not be used as a proof of identity, although this sometimes happens in the commercial sector. Employers need the personal identity code to report payment of wages to Finnish Tax Administration, the pension funds, etc. The code is shown in all forms of valid identification: •
national ID card • electronic national ID card (with a chip) •
driver's license (old
A6-sized and new credit card-sized) •
passport During 1964–1970 the personal identity code was known as
sosiaaliturvatunnus (SOTU, Social Security number). The term is still widely in use unofficially (and incorrectly).
France In
France, the
INSEE code is used as a social insurance number, a national identification number, for taxation purposes, for employment, etc. It was invented under the
Vichy regime.
Georgia In
Georgia personal number is 11 digits and may contain leading zero. It is assigned to citizens at birth and to residents on demand. Personal number is used for identification in all government and many commercial institutions. Personal number is also reused as taxpayer identification number for Individual entrepreneurs. For citizens, the first few digits apparently represent place of birth. However, the format is not public.
Germany In
Germany, there is no national identification number in the full meaning of the term. Until 2007 only decentralized databases were kept by social insurance companies, who allocate a social insurance number to almost every person. Every citizen (and every permanent resident) is assigned a personal ( or
Steuer-IdNr), usually at birth. The Steuer-IdNr was introduced in 2008 to replace the former Tax File Number (
:de:Steuernummer), which did not uniquely identify a single person. The corresponding number for organizations, also issued by the tax administration, is named economy identification number (
Wirtschafts-Identifikationsnummer). These numbering concepts are national systems, organized by the
Federal Central Tax Office. For special purpose further value-added tax identification numbers are issued for persons and organizations that are subject to paying VAT as a deduct from their revenues. This is a Europe-wide unified concept. Additionally for all persons joining the military service, a Service Number is issued. The
German Commercial Register holds records about companies. None of these numbers are commonly used for other than their specific purpose, nor is such (ab)use legal.
German identity documents do not contain any of the mentioned numbers, only a document number. People are not expected to know their number when dealing with an authority. For some time, the
West German government intended to create a 12-digit personal identification number (
Personenkennzeichen, PKZ) for all citizens, registered alien residents on its territory, and all non-resident Nazi victims entitled to compensation payments. The system, which was to be implemented by the 1973 federal law on civil registry, was rejected in 1976, when the
Bundestag found the concept of an identification system for the entire population to be incompatible with the existing legal framework. In
East Germany, a similar system named
Personenkennzahl (PKZ) was set up in 1970 and remained in use until the state ceased to exist in 1990. ;When applying for the USA Visa Waiver Program: As Germany is part of the
Visa Waiver Program German citizens can enter the US for up to 90 days without the need of a visa. In order to participate in this program, filling out an online form called
ESTA is required. This form specifically asks German citizens about a national identification number. Since German citizens do not always have a national identification number, Germans are not expected to fill in a number here, but they can fill in UNKNOWN instead.
Greece In
Greece, there are a number of national identification numbers. • The standard identity card, which has the format X-999999 where X can be any of the 24 letters of the
Greek alphabet, is issued to all Greek citizens at the age of 12. • New Greek identity cards have a number formatted like this: XX-999999 where X is a letter, whose uppercase glyph occurs in both the Greek and the Latin alphabet (ABEZHIKMNOPTYX). The letters and numbers are assigned with sequential order. • The Tax Identity Number (AFM - ΑΦΜ - Αριθμός Φορολογικού Μητρώου - Tax Registry Number), which is used by citizens and companies for tax purposes. It has nine digits, of which the last one is a check digit. • The Social Security Number (AMKA - Αριθμός Μητρώου Κοινωνικής Ασφάλισης) which is the work and insurance ID of every employee, pensioner and dependent member of their family in Greece. Its first six digits is the owner's date of birth in the dd/mm/yy format. The ID card number is not unique and changes if the person gets a new identity card. The tax identity number is unique for every citizen and company. Social security number is also unique. In 2022 Personal Number (Προσωπικός Αριθμός) was scheduled to be introduced, which will be based on the existing Tax Identity Number and will replace all existing identification numbers. It will be unique and will formatted as XXX-999999999. It has 3 alphanumeric characters + 9 digits. The number was introduced to all citizens in 2025.
Hungary In
Hungary, there is no national identification number. The
Constitutional Court decided in 1991: "A general, uniform personal identification code which may be used without restriction (i.e. a personal number) distributed to every citizen and to every resident of the country based on an identical principle is unconstitutional." Although the universal use of national identification number (known as "Personal Identification Number") is considered to be unconstitutional, it is still used in many places. The structure of such number is GYYMMDDXXXC, whereas G is the gender (but also indicates century of birth, and, in some cases, citizenship), YYMMDD is the birth date year, month, day, XXX is the serial number, and C is a checksum digit. The meanings of the first number: • 1 male, born between 1900 and 1999 • 2 female, born between 1900 and 1999 • 3 male, born before 1900 or after 1999 • 4 female, born before 1900 or after 1999 Until 1997 also were used the following first numbers: • 5 male, naturalized citizen or foreign citizen living in Hungary, born between 1900 and 1997 • 6 female, naturalized citizen or foreign citizen living in Hungary, born between 1900 and 1997 • 7 male, naturalized citizen or foreign citizen living in Hungary, born before 1900 – defunct as no one born before 1900 is alive now • 8 female, naturalized citizen or foreign citizen living in Hungary, born before 1900 – defunct as no one born before 1900 is alive now As the "Personal Identification Number" is considered to be unconstitutional, another identification number, the ID card identification number is in use, which is assigned to the ID card, not to the holder of it. Thus an average Hungarian citizen has these identifiers in common use: • personal identification number – for statistical use • ID card identification number – for general identification (in e.g. contracts) • social security number ("TAJ" number) – for healthcare and social security • educational identification number – for education • tax identification number – for taxing They may also have a passport identification number, a driving license number and a tax number – the latter is mandatory for business owners only, and is different from tax identification number which is mandatory for every citizen.
Iceland All
Icelanders, as well as foreign citizens residing in
Iceland and corporations and institutions, have an
Icelandic identification number ("
kennitala") identifying them in the
Icelandic national register. The number is composed of 10 digits, of which the first six are the individual's birth date in the format DDMMYY. The next two digits are chosen at random, the ninth digit is a
check digit, and the last digit indicates the birthdate century (e.g. 9 for the 1900s, 0 for 2000s). The system is similar to other Scandinavian and European countries, but the use of identification numbers is unusually open and extensive in Iceland. Businesses and universities use the number as a customer or student identifier, as well as all banking transactions.
Registers Iceland is the government agency that oversees the system. A database matching names to numbers is freely accessible (after login) on all Icelandic online banking sites. Given this openness, the number is never used as an authenticator. It is worth noting that the completeness of the national register eliminates any need for Iceland to take censuses. The number is present on
Icelandic identity cards,
driving licences and
passports.
Ireland In
Ireland the Personal Public Service Number (PPS No. or PPSN) is gaining the characteristics of a national identification number as it is used for a variety of public services – although it is stated that it is not a national identifier and its use is defined by law. The PPS No. is in the basic form of 1234567T (PPS Numbers allocated from 1 January 2013 will have the format 1234567TA) and is unique to each person. For certain public services the collection or retention of numbers of the general public is not allowed, thus
Garda Síochána (Irish police) is only given an exemption for its own employees or other people defined under the Immigration Act, 2003 – the latter who are people who are not European Union nationals. Similarly the
Irish Defence Forces may only collect and retain the number for their own employees. The PPS Number cannot be used for private or commercial transactions. The number is used in the private sector, but is limited to a few procedures that lawfully required the production of a number, for transactions with public services and in this regard the private sector will be acting as the agent of a public body entitled to collect and retain the number. Thus, for instance, students who attend college or university will have their number (or other personal data) collected at registration – this will then be sent to
Department of Social Protection to ensure that a student is not simultaneously claiming
social welfare. Banks may collect the number for the administration of accounts that give interest or
tax reliefs which the state funds, through the
Revenue Commissioners. A bank may not use the number as a customer identification number.
Italy In
Italy, the
fiscal code () is issued to every legal person in Italy. It is in the format "SSSNNNYYMDDZZZZX", where: SSS are the first three
consonants in the
family name (the first
vowel and then an X are used if there are not enough consonants); NNN is the
first name, of which the first, third and fourth consonants are used—exceptions are handled as in family names; YY are the last digits of the birth year; M is the letter for the month of birth—letters are used in
alphabetical order, but only the letters A to E, H, L, M, P, R to T are used (thus, January is A and October is R); DD is the day of the month of birth—in order to differentiate between genders, 40 is added to the day of birth for women (thus a woman born on 3 May has ...E43...); ZZZZ is an area code specific to the
municipality where the person was born—country-wide codes are used for foreign countries; X is a parity character as calculated by adding together characters in the
even and
odd positions, and dividing them by 26. Numerical values are used for letters in even positions according to their alphabetical order. Characters in odd positions have different values. A letter is then used which corresponds to the value of the
remainder of the division in the alphabet. An exception algorithm exists in case of perfectly matching codes for two persons. Issuance of the code is centralized to the Ministry of Treasure. The fiscal code uniquely identifies an Italian citizen or permanently resident alien, and is thus used. However, since it can be calculated from personal information (whether real, or not), it is not generally regarded as an extremely reserved piece of information, nor as official proof of identity/existence of an individual.
Kazakhstan In
Kazakhstan there is a 12-digit Individual Identification Number for natural persons (abbreviated in ,
ZhSN; in ,
IIN, with first six digits representing person's date of birth in the YYMMDD format) and a 12-digit Business Identification Number for legal entities (companies). Until its abolishment on 1 January 2013, the 12-digit Taxpayer's Registration Number (; , usually abbreviated as РНН,
RNN) was more popular in dealings with authorities as well as with businesses.
Latvia In
Latvia the Personal Code () consists of 11 digits in form DDMMYY-XNNNZ where the first six digits are person's date of birth, the next one stands for a century person was born in (0 for 19. (1800–1899), 1 for 20. (1900–1999) and 2 for 21. (2000–2099)), NNN is birth serial number in that day, and Z is checksum digit calculated in a way that modulo validation formula is equals to Z. Given the input in the following format ABCDEF-XGHIZ, Validation formula is Z must equal to (1101-(1*A+6*B+3*C+7*D+9*E+10*F+5*X+8*G+4*H+2*I)) | Mod 11 | Mod 10. From 1 July 2017, Personal Codes are issued without indication to date of birth. Personal code starts with digits "32" to distinguish new and old format.
Lithuania In
Lithuania the Personal Code () consists of 11 digits, and currently is in the form G YYMMDD NNN C, where G is gender & birth century, YYMMDD is the birthday, NNN is a serial number, C is a checksum digit. In this scheme, the first number (G) shows both the person's gender (odd if male, even if female) and birth century. For example, 4 would mean female, born between 1900 and 1999. This number can be calculated as: gender = {female: 0, male: 1} G = floor(year / 100) * 2 – 34 – gender The checksum is calculated using this formula (provided here as
JavaScript code): function lt_nin_checksum(code) { var b = 1, c = 3, d = 0, e = 0, i, digit; for (i = 0; i Recently (as of May 2015) there are plans to start issuing opaque codes instead, keeping the same overall format and checksum, but containing no personal information.
Luxembourg Luxembourg uses a 13-digit identification code, existing of the birth date formatted as YYYYMMDD followed by a number XXX ensuring persons born on the same date have a unique national ID, and then a first check on YYYYMMDDXXX using the
Luhn10 algorithm, and finally a check using the
Verhoeff algorithm.
Moldova In the Republic of Moldova, all citizens receive at birth a Personal Code (IDNP – Numarul de Identificare), which is composed of 13 digits. This code is shown on all identity documents: •
internal ID cards • driving licenses •
passports • as well as all civil status documents: birth certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates etc.
Montenegro Montenegro uses a 13-number identification code
Jedinstveni matični broj građana/Јединствени матични број грађана (JMBG) –
Unique Master Citizen Number.
Netherlands In the
Netherlands, all people receive a
Burgerservicenummer (BSN) (Citizen Service Number) when they are born or when first taking up residence. It is printed on driving licenses, passports and international ID cards, under the header
Personal Number. Before 2007, the BSN was known as
sofinummer (the
acronym sofi stands for
so-ciaal (social)
fi-scaal (fiscal) ). The number is unique. However, initially it was issued by regionally operating branches of the tax department which were all assigned ranges; in densely populated areas the assigned ranges would overflow thus causing duplicate numbers. This mistake was corrected during the transition from SOFI to BSN by issuing a new number to people having a duplicate one. The number does not contain any information about the person to whom it is assigned (i.e. no information, such as gender or date of birth, can be derived from a BSN).
North Macedonia North Macedonia uses a 13-number identification code
Unique Master Citizen Number (, acronym ЕМБГ). The Unique Master Citizen Number is composed of 13 digits (DDMMYYYRRSSSC) arranged in six groups: two digits (DD) for the citizen's day of birth, two digits (MM) for the month of birth, last three digits (YYY) of the year of birth, two digits (RR) as a registry number, three digits (SSS) as a combination of the citizen's sex and ordinal number of birth, and one digit (C) as a control number. The two digit registry number depends on the citizens place of birth. There are nine registry codes that define the place of birth: 41 for the municipalities of
Bitola,
Demir Hisar and
Resen; 42 for the municipalities of
Kumanovo,
Kratovo and
Kriva Palanka; 43 for the municipalities of
Ohrid,
Struga,
Debar and
Kičevo; 44 for the municipalities of
Prilep,
Kruševo and
Makedonski Brod; 45 for the
City of Skopje; 46 for the municipalities of
Strumica,
Valandovo and
Radoviš; 47 for the municipalities of
Tetovo and
Gostivar; 48 for the municipalities of
Veles,
Gevegelija,
Kavadarci and
Negotino; and 49 for the municipalities of
Štip,
Berovo,
Vinica,
Delčevo,
Kočani,
Probištip and
Sveti Nikole. The combination of the citizen's sex and ordinal number of birth is presented as a 3 digit number – from 000 to 499 for the male, and from 500 to 999 for the female citizens. The last digit is a computer generated control digit.
Norway Norway's eleven-digit birth number (
fødselsnummer) is assigned at birth, or on migration into the country. The register is maintained by the Norwegian Tax Office. The number has been in use since the 1960s and was first introduced to the public in 1968. The number is not as widely and openly used as in some other Scandinavian countries, and a 2007 report criticized the common misperception by the Norwegian public that the number is suitable for use as a PIN code. Historically, the number has been composed of the date of birth (DDMMYY), a three digit
individual number, and two
check digits. The individual number and the check digits are collectively known as the
Personal Number. • The
individual number has been selected from a range depending on century of birth: for the years 1854–1899 the range is 500–749, for the years 1900–1999 the range is 000–499, for the years 2000–2039 the range is 500–999. • : For the years 1940–1999, the range 900–999 was also used for special purposes, such as adoptions from abroad and immigrants. • : Women have been assigned even individual numbers, men are assigned odd individual numbers. • The first check digit is calculated through an algorithm involving modulo 11 of weighted sum of the nine first digits. • : The second check digit is calculated through a similar algorithm involving the 10 first digits. • People who do not permanently reside in Norway have been assigned a
D-number upon registration in the population register. The D-number is like a birth number, but with the day of the month increased by 40. D comes from the Norwegian name of an authority for sailors, which previously issued those numbers, usually to sailors on board Norwegian ships. Nowadays foreign seasonal workers, for example in the tourist industry, get D-numbers. In 2017, the Norwegian Ministry of Finance approved changes to the numbering system. After the changes, the number will no longer indicate gender, and the first check digit will be 'released' to become part of the individual number.
Poland In
Poland, a Public Electronic Census System ( - PESEL) number is mandatory for all permanent residents of Poland and for temporary residents living in Poland for over 2 months. It has the form YYMMDDZZZXQ, where YYMMDD is the date of birth (with century encoded in the month field), ZZZ is the personal identification number, X denotes sex (even for females, odd for males) and Q is a
check digit.
Portugal The
Constitution of
Portugal – in its 35th Article – expressly prohibits the assignment of a national single number to the citizens. This prohibition is related with the protection of the personal rights, liberties and guaranties. As such, a national identification number does not exist, but instead each citizen has several different identification numbers for use in the different single purposes. The existing main identification numbers are: • Civil identification number ( or NIC) – also referred informally as the Citizen Card's number or the
BI's number (BI being the acronym of the
old civil identification document); • Tax identification Number (
Número de identificação fiscal or NIF) – also referred informally as the taxpayer's number (
número do contribuinte); • Social Security number (
Número de Segurança Social); • Healthcare user number (
Número de utente da Saúde); • Voter's number (
Número de eleitor); • Driver's license number (
Número de carta de condução). The NIC and the NIF are the mostly commonly used identification numbers in Portugal. These two numbers are used for a broad number of purposes – both in the public and the private sectors – and not only for the specific purposes for which they were originally conceived. In the past, to each of the above identification numbers corresponded a separate identification document. However, in 2006, the single
Citizen Card was implemented. This card includes the civil identification, the tax identification, the Social Security and the Healthcare user numbers, replacing the old corresponding identification cards. Besides this, the Citizen Card also replaced the previous Voter's Card, although not including the voter's number. The replacing of the previous separate identification documents by the single Citizen Card is a gradual process, only being mandatory for a citizen, when one of his/her old documents expires. The driver's license continues to be an entirely separate document.
Romania In
Romania each citizen has a Personal Numerical Code (
Cod Numeric Personal, CNP), which is created by using the citizen's
gender and century of birth (1/3/5/7 for male, 2/4/6/8 for female and 9 for foreign citizen),
date of birth (six digits, YYMMDD), the country zone (two digits, from 01 to 52, or 99), followed by a serial number (3 digits), and finally a
checksum digit. The first digit encodes the gender of person as follows: The country zone is a code of
Romanian county in alphabetical order. For
Bucharest the code is 4 followed by the
sector number. To calculate the checksum digit, every digit from CNP is multiplied with the corresponding digit in number 279146358279; the sum of all these multiplications is then divided by 11. If the remainder is 10 then the checksum digit is 1, otherwise it is the remainder itself. Example ======= Control = 279146358279 CNP = 1800101221144 ^ checksum digit = 4 Checksum value = 1 * 2 + 8 * 7 + 0 * 9 + 0 * 1 + 1 * 4 + 0 * 6 + 1 * 3 + 2 * 5 + 2 * 8 + 1 * 2 + 1 * 7 + 4 * 9 = 136 Checksum digit = 136 mod 11 = 4. Valid CNP (the last digit is indeed 4).
San Marino In
San Marino there exists the Codice ISS (Istituto Sicurezza Sociale), which is composed of 5 digits. It is given to all San Marino citizens and permanent residents.
Serbia Serbia uses a 13-number identification code
Unique Master Citizen Number (/, acronym JMBG). Same as Slovenia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina and North Macedonia.
Slovakia In
Slovakia there are two kinds of National identification numbers. The first one is the
Birth Number (), issued at birth by the civic records authority () and recorded on the birth certificate. Its format is YYMMDD/XXXX with YYMMDD being the date of birth and XXXX being a semi-unique identifier. For females, the month of the date of birth is advanced by 50. Full identification number in the form YYMMDDXXXX must be divisible by 11. Since this system does not provide a truly unique identifier (the numbers are repeated every century) and contains what might be considered private information, it may be updated in the future. The second system is the ''Citizen's Identification Card Number'' () which is in the form AA XXXXXX (A-alphabetic, X-numeric) and is used on
Slovak identity cards. Identification Cards are issued by the state authority (
police) for every citizen who reaches 15 years of age. In contrast to the Birth Number, this identifier can change over the citizen's lifetime if a new ID card is issued, for reasons such as expiration, loss or change of residence. The ID number is used, among other things, for voter registration (because of the domicile record verification provided by the ID). A similar system, with both types of identification numbers, is used in the
Czech Republic.
Slovenia Slovenia uses a 13-number identification code
enotna matična številka občana (EMŠO) –
Unique Master Citizen Number. It is composed of 13 digits as follows DDMMYYYRRSSSX. DD – day of birth> MM – month of birth YYY – year of birth, last three digits RR – a constant value 50 This is a legacy of Yugoslavia, a registry number that marked the birth zone: - 00–09 – foreigners - 10–19 – Bosnia and Herzegovina - 20–29 – Montenegro - 30–39 – Croatia (33 – Zagreb) - 40–49 – Macedonia - 50–59 – Slovenia (only 50 is used) - 60–69 – (not in use) - 70–79 – Central Serbia (71 – Belgrade) - 80–89 – Province of Vojvodina (80 – Novi Sad) - 90–99 – Province of Kosovo SSS – serial number or combination of sex and serial numbers for persons born on the same day (000–499 for men and 500–999 for women) X – checksum of first 12
Spain In
Spain, all resident Spanish citizens can obtain (mandatorily after 14 years old) a
National Identity Document (Spanish:
Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI)), with a unique number, in the format 00000000-A, where 0 is a digit and A is a
checksum letter. Since 2010, foreign residents are no longer issued with identity cards, although they are assigned a number in the format X-0000000-A (again, 0 is a digit, A is a checksum letter, and X is a letter, generally X but lately also Y), called an
NIE Number (
Número de Identificación de Extranjeros, Foreigner's Identification Number). The DNI is required for all transactions related with tax authority, as well as to access the ubiquitous
Spanish National Health System (although it has its own insured identification document), apply for marriage licences, receive unemployment compensation, and in general all interactions with law enforcement and any government or government-supervised institution. Foreign residents are required to use their passports together with the document containing their NIE number
Sweden In
Sweden a
Personal Identity Number () is used in dealings with public agencies, from health care to the tax authorities. It appears on all approved identity documents. It is also used as a customer code by some companies like banks and insurance companies. The number is considered extra important to protect by the Swedish data protection authority, requiring it to be clearly motivated by the nature of the service or explicit consent to register it. The number uses ten digits, YYMMDD-NNGC. The first six approximate the birth date in YYMMDD format; for individuals with an unknown birth date or those born on days where there aren't any unique numbers left a date close to the birth date may be used. Digits seven to nine (NNG) are used to make the number unique, where digit nine (G) is odd for men and even for women. For numbers issued before 1990, the seventh and eighth digit identify the Swedish
county of birth, with different digits for foreign-born people, but privacy-related criticism caused this system to be abandoned for new numbers. The tenth digit (C) is created using the
Luhn, or "mod 10", checksum algorithm. Temporary residents or other people with temporary dealings with authorities get a "coordination number" which has 60 added to the date. Registration numbers of Swedish corporations and other legal entities follow the same ten-digit format, but are not based on dates.
Switzerland Since the introduction of a national pension scheme in 1948, most persons resident in Switzerland are allocated a Social Security Number (AHV-Nr. [de] / No AVS [fr]), which is also used for other governmental purposes. The eleven-digit format in use since 1968 is of the form AAA.BB.CCC.DDD and encodes information about the name, birth date and sex of its holder: • The "AAA" digits encode the family name. • The "BB" digits are equal to the last two digits of the year of birth. • The "CCC" digits encode the birth day as a trimester number (1–4) followed by the number of the day in the trimester. An offset of 400 is added for female persons (e.g. 101 is 1 January for men and 501 is 1 January for women). • The "DDD" digits are used to be an origin code depending which country the person came from and or if this person was a Swiss citizen through birth or naturalisation. As of 2008, an anonymous thirteen-digit number is being issued to all Swiss residents. It is of the form 756.XXXX.XXXX.XY, where 756 is the
ISO 3166-1 code for Switzerland, XXXX.XXXX.X is a random number and Y is an
EAN-13 check digit.
Turkey During the application for a national ID card, every
Turkish citizen is assigned a unique personal identification number called
Turkish Identification Number ( or abbreviated as
T.C. Kimlik No.), an 11-digit number with two trailing
check digits. This assignment is organized through the MERNIS (abbreviation for ) project that started on 28 October 2000. The national ID card is compulsory for every citizen and is issued at birth. Parents need to register to the authorities with the child's birth certificate. The identification number is used by public institutions in their certificates and documents like
identity card,
passport, international family book,
driving license, form and manifesto they issue to citizens. It is used by services such as taxation,
security,
voting, education,
social security, health care,
military recruitment, and
banking.
Ukraine Individual Identification Number is a 10 digit number issued by the tax administration. The first 5 digits represent birthday as the number of days since 1 January 1900 (more numbers can be assigned to the same day, this additional or alternative numbers have greater first digit, typically 8). The next four digits is a serial number, it is used so that men get the odd numbers, and women get the even numbers. The last digit is a
check digit. The algorithm is not publicly revealed. Similar numbers are issued to residents and foreigners. A person can opt out of receiving an Individual Identification Number based on religious or other beliefs, however it is associated with minor tax disadvantages. The Individual Identification Numbers are issued according to a Law of Ukraine 320/94-BP passed on 22 December 1994. Since 2016, identification no. is one detail of
Ukrainian identity card (compared to being a separate paper document (still in force during transition period) in the past. It takes up to 5 days to obtain a taxpayer identification number or tax ID in Ukraine. In addition to taxpayer ID, a Unique Registry Entry Number () The UNZR number is unchanged throughout life (it does not change if the last name, first name or any other information changes). On 11 July 2023, the
Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine approved the "Procedure for access of notaries to the Unified State Demographic Register" (hereinafter – the Procedure). The procedure defines the mechanism of granting notaries access to the Unified State Demographic Register, obtaining them for the purpose of establishing the person who applied for the performance of a notarial act: information on the validity of documents drawn up using the Register; information or other personal data from the Register about the person who applied for a notarial act. The
Ministry of Justice of Ukraine, the
Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine and the
State Migration Service of Ukraine have been instructed to ensure electronic information interaction between the Unified State Demographic Register and the Unified State Electronic System of e-Notariat.
United Kingdom A
National Insurance number (often abbreviated as NI no. or NI number or NINO) is used to administer state benefits, but is not considered proof of identity. As it is the only number that is unique to each individual, does not change during the course of the person's lifetime, and is issued to virtually every adult throughout the UK, it is used by
His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (HMRC) to track individuals for income tax purposes. The number is stylised as LL NN NN NN L, for example AA 01 23 44 B. National Insurance numbers are widely used in banking, government services and identification purposes, despite not being explicitly defined as such. Separately, those born in the
England and
Wales, as well as those who are registered at a GP are issued a
National Health Service number, taking the form NNN-NNN-NNNN, for example 122-762-9257 (the last number being a check digit). Similarly in
Scotland, healthcare users are issued a CHI (Community Health Index) number, taking the form DDMMYY-NNNN, with the DDMMYY representing their date of birth and a four digit unique number thereafter (e.g. someone born on 3 February 2010 would have the number 030210-NNNN, with the four digit number allocated upon entering newborn details on to the local health board's
patient administration system). The second last N is even for females and odd for males. == Oceania ==