Guide

How a six-digit pincode is built

A pincode reads from left to right like a set of nested boxes: each digit narrows the area a little more, until the last three digits name a single delivery post office.

Six digits, four layers

PIN stands for Postal Index Number, the six-digit numbering India Post uses for post offices. It was introduced on 15 August 1972 (Source: Department of Posts). The Department of Posts describes the layers like this (Source: Department of Posts):

The numbers in the tiles are digit positions, not a real pincode.

1. The first digit indicates one of the PIN regions.
2. The first two digits together indicate a sub-region, or one of the postal circles.
3. The first three digits together indicate a sorting or revenue district.
4. The last three digits refer to the delivery post office.

Notice that the layers are cumulative. The second digit means little by itself; it is the pair of first two digits that points to a sub-region. In the same way, the third digit only makes sense together with the two before it.

Nine regions, and one is for the Army

There are nine PIN regions. The first eight are geographical regions, and the digit 9 is reserved for the Army Postal Service (Source: Department of Posts). That is why no pincode begins with 0, and why the code checker on this site treats a leading 0 as a mistake.

Which areas each first digit covers

The Department of Posts' catalog description gives the number of regions but not the states in each. Two India Post postal-circle websites did list them: the Tamil Nadu Postal Circle's pincode page (Source: India Post, Tamil Nadu Circle) and the Uttarakhand Postal Circle's PIN codes page (Source: India Post, Uttarakhand Circle). Both websites are now offline, so we read the copies kept by the Internet Archive, captured on 20 July 2014 and 10 December 2023. The table sets the two lists side by side.

Read the table with three points in mind:

• The names are old. They are given as the pages gave them, with only spelling slips corrected. Both pages are years old, so some names may not match today's states and union territories.
• Eight or nine regions. The Uttarakhand page speaks of 8 PIN regions and lists only the digits 1 to 8. This guide follows the Department of Posts' catalog, which counts nine, with 9 reserved for the Army Postal Service (Source: Department of Posts).
• One state is missing from a list. The Tamil Nadu page names the north-eastern states under 7 one by one but leaves out Manipur. India Post's list of postal circles places Manipur in the North East Circle (Source: India Post).

Once the directory is imported, the tables further down show the states the directory itself records under each first digit. Where they differ from the table above, go by the directory.

Postal circles, which the first two digits point to

The first two digits point to a sub-region or a postal circle (Source: Department of Posts). India Post says it has divided the country into 23 postal circles for providing postal services, each matching one state, with these exceptions (Source: India Post):

• Gujarat Circle, which also administers Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli;
• Kerala Circle, which includes Lakshadweep;
• Maharashtra Circle, which also covers Goa;
• North East Circle, which covers six states: Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura;
• Punjab Circle, which also covers Chandigarh;
• Tamil Nadu Circle, which also administers Pondicherry (Puducherry);
• West Bengal Circle, which also covers Sikkim and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Each circle is divided into regions, and each region into divisions. Apart from these 23, India Post has a Base Circle for the postal needs of the armed forces, headed by the Additional Director General, Army Postal Service (Source: India Post). The union territories above are named as India Post's page names them.

What the directory adds to the digits

The digits give you the layers but not their names. The directory supplies them: for each post office it records a circle, region and division, plus a district and state (Source: Department of Posts). So the directory is where you find out which circle a pair of first two digits belongs to.

Once the directory is imported, this section shows two tables built from it: the states recorded under each first digit, and the postal circles recorded under each pair of first two digits. The directory has not been imported yet, so the tables are not shown.

Reading a pincode in everyday use

• Check the first three digits first. They decide the sorting district, so a slip there points to a different sorting district altogether. A slip in the last three keeps the sorting district but names a different delivery office, or one that does not exist. Both matter.
• Expect more than one office. The directory lists post offices, and several can share one pincode. To find which office serves a particular street, ask the local post office.
• Do not rely on the office name alone. The same office name can appear in different states. The district and state in each result tell them apart.
• A pincode is not an address. It narrows mail down to a delivery office; the house, street and locality still do the rest of the work.

Try it: the code checker splits any pincode into these layers, and the pincode lookup lists the offices once the directory is loaded.