PAN Card Application (New / Correction)

What is PAN and who issues it?

PAN, the Permanent Account Number, is a 10-character alphanumeric identifier allotted by the Income Tax Department under the Ministry of Finance. PAN is permanent, it does not change with a change of address, name, employer or assessing officer, and it is never reissued to another person.

The Income Tax Department does not process applications itself. It has authorised two agencies to receive and process PAN applications on its behalf:

• Protean eGov Technologies (formerly NSDL e-Governance), through the Tax Information Network at tinpan.proteantech.in
• UTI Infrastructure Technology and Services Limited (UTIITSL), at pan.utiitsl.com

Both are equally official and both issue exactly the same PAN. Choose either. The practical consequence of the split is that an application submitted to one agency must also be tracked and corrected through that same agency.

PAN is required to file an income tax return, to open most bank and demat accounts, to receive salary above the tax threshold, to buy or sell immovable property above the prescribed limit, and for a range of specified high-value transactions.

Who can apply for a PAN card?

You can apply if:

• You are an individual, including a minor, a student or a person with no income at all. There is no minimum income requirement for holding PAN.
• You are a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), applying through the Karta.
• You are a company, LLP, partnership firm, trust, society, association of persons or local authority registered in India.
• You are a foreign citizen or foreign entity with a tax nexus in India. From 1 April 2026 foreign citizens apply on Form 95 or 96 rather than the old Form 49AA.
• You are an NRI. Residence abroad does not bar you from holding PAN.

You cannot apply if:

• You already hold a PAN. A second PAN is not permitted and attracts a penalty. Someone who needs a card replaced should use the reprint service at Rs 50, and someone whose details have changed should use the correction service: neither generates a new number.
• You are seeking to change your PAN number itself. PAN is permanent; only the data printed against it can be corrected.

An individual applicant eligible to obtain Aadhaar must quote it. That is not a formality — the allotted PAN must stay linked to Aadhaar, and an unlinked PAN becomes inoperative.

Which form applies to a PAN application now?

The forms changed on 1 April 2026. Protean and UTIITSL both confirm that the long-familiar Forms 49A and 49AA ceased to be accepted after 31 March 2026, in line with the renumbering that came with the Income Tax Act, 2025.

In practice you do not choose the form number yourself. The online portal asks for your citizenship and applicant category and then presents the correct form. The point to take away is that any website, PDF or agent still handing you a "Form 49A" is working from material that is out of date.

What does a PAN application cost?

The Rs 72 e-PAN-only option is the one most applicants should take. e-PAN is a digitally signed PDF and is legally complete on its own; the Rs 35 difference buys a laminated card that no law requires you to hold.

How to apply for a PAN card online

1. Choose your agency. Open either tinpan.proteantech.in or pan.utiitsl.com. Both are authorised by the Income Tax Department and issue identical PANs.
2. Select the application type. Choose New PAN for Indian citizens or New PAN for foreign citizens, then pick your applicant category, individual, HUF, firm, company or trust. The portal loads the correct form.
3. Choose your verification mode. Aadhaar-based e-KYC and eSign is the fastest, since it pulls your name, date of birth, address and photograph from the Aadhaar database after an OTP and needs no uploads. The alternatives are scanned-document submission with eSign, or a physical mode where you print and post the signed acknowledgement.
4. Fill in the form. Enter your name exactly as it appears in Aadhaar, your date of birth, your father's name where required, your address, your source of income and your contact details.
5. Choose e-PAN only or e-PAN with a physical card. This determines whether you pay Rs 72 or Rs 107.
6. Pay the fee by net banking, debit card, credit card or UPI.
7. Complete eSign using the Aadhaar OTP, or, if you chose the physical mode, print the acknowledgement, affix two recent photographs, sign it and post it to the agency's processing address within the stated window.
8. Save the 15-digit acknowledgement number and track your application with it on the same portal.

How to apply for a PAN card offline

1. Visit a PAN facilitation centre or TIN-FC operated by Protean, or a UTIITSL PAN service centre. Both agencies publish centre locators on their portals.
2. Collect and fill in the current application form for your applicant category.
3. Attach self-attested copies of Proof of Identity, Proof of Address and Proof of Date of Birth, along with two recent passport-size photographs.
4. Pay the applicable fee at the counter and collect the receipt bearing your acknowledgement number.

The offline route exists mainly for applicants without Aadhaar-linked mobile numbers, for non-individual entities and for foreign applicants. For an ordinary resident individual it is slower and no cheaper.

How to correct or change PAN details

1. Open the Change/Correction in PAN Data service on Protean or UTIITSL.
2. Enter your existing PAN and select the corrected applicant category.
3. Tick the box beside only the fields you want changed. This is the step applicants most often get wrong, an unticked field is left untouched even if you retype it, and a wrongly ticked one triggers a demand for proof you do not have.
4. Attach documentary proof supporting each corrected value, for example a marriage certificate or gazette notification for a change of surname.
5. Pay the fee and complete eSign or post the signed acknowledgement.

Your PAN number stays the same throughout. UTIITSL additionally allows an address update through Aadhaar e-KYC free of cost, which is worth using before paying for a full correction request when the address is all that has changed.

How to track a PAN application

1. Open the Track PAN Card Status page on the portal where you applied.
2. Select PAN – New/Change Request as the application type.
3. Enter your 15-digit acknowledgement number and the captcha.
4. Submit to see the current stage, and the dispatch or consignment details once a physical card has been posted.

An application filed with Protean cannot be tracked on UTIITSL, or the other way round. If you have lost the acknowledgement number, contact the agency you applied to on its helpline rather than filing a fresh application, which would risk allotting you a prohibited second PAN.

Why PAN applications get rejected, and how to fix them

• Name mismatch with Aadhaar. The commonest rejection by far. Enter your name exactly as printed in Aadhaar, including the order of the given name and surname and any expansion of initials.
• Signature outside the box on a posted physical application, or a signature in capital letters, which is not accepted.
• Photograph not recent, not passport-size, or stapled rather than pasted.
• Date of birth unsupported by the proof attached.
• Proof of address in another person's name, such as a parent's utility bill.
• Duplicate PAN detected. The department found an existing PAN against your identity. Surrender the duplicate rather than pursuing the new application.
• Acknowledgement not posted in time, where the physical mode was chosen.

A rejection notice names the defect. Correcting that one item and resubmitting is almost always faster than starting again, and the Aadhaar e-KYC route avoids the signature, photograph and postage failures entirely.

How do I get help with a PAN problem?

• PAN and TAN queries (Tax Information Network): +91-20-27218080, 07:00 to 23:00 hrs, all days
• UTIITSL customer care: +91 33 40802999, 09:00 to 20:00 hrs, all days; utiitsl.gsd@utiitsl.com
• e-Filing and income tax processing: 1800 103 0025 or 1800 419 0025, and +91-80-46122000 or +91-80-61464700, 08:00 to 20:00 hrs, Monday to Friday
• Portals: incometax.gov.in, tinpan.proteantech.in, pan.utiitsl.com

Applying for PAN directly on the official portals costs only the government fee of Rs 72 for e-PAN or Rs 107 with a physical card, and nothing more. Agents and "PAN service" websites routinely charge Rs 300 to Rs 800 for an application that takes about 15 minutes through Aadhaar e-KYC, and some collect your Aadhaar OTP in the process, which hands them the ability to authenticate as you. Apply on tinpan.proteantech.in or pan.utiitsl.com yourself, pay only the published fee, and never share an OTP with anyone.