Pattern · India 🇮🇳

Regex for Trade license number

Municipal trade license — varies but commonly LL/YYYY/NNNNNN.

The Trade license number regex is ^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$ — copy it below, or open it in the explainer for a token-by-token breakdown.

The pattern

^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$

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What it matches

MCB/2024/123456
MCD/2023/789012
KMC/2024/45678

What it doesn't match

M/2024/123456
MCB-2024-123456
MCB/24/123456

Notes & gotchas

Trade licenses are issued by municipal corporations (MCD = Delhi, MCB/BMC = Mumbai, KMC = Kolkata, GHMC = Hyderabad, BBMP = Bengaluru). Format varies but commonly Department code + year + serial. Required to operate any commercial establishment.

Code in your language

Use the explainer's Code tab to generate ready-to-paste snippets in JavaScript, Python, Java, .NET, Go, Ruby, and PHP for this pattern.

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Token-by-token breakdown

Every part of the pattern, left to right:

Token	Meaning
`^`	start of string (or line in multiline mode)
`[A-Z]{2,3}`	between 2 and 3 times: any of: uppercase letters
`/`	literal text “/”
`\d{4}`	exactly 4 times: digit (0–9)
`/`	literal text “/”
`\d{4,8}`	between 4 and 8 times: digit (0–9)
`$`	end of string (or line in multiline mode)

About this pattern

India-specific identifiers are governed by various authorities (UIDAI for Aadhaar, Income Tax Dept for PAN, RBI for IFSC, GSTN for GSTIN, etc.). Regex confirms format; for definitive validation, integrate with the issuing authority's verification API.

Quick usage in different languages

This exact pattern — with the correct escaping and idioms for each language:

JavaScript: /^[A-Z]{2,3}\/\d{4}\/\d{4,8}$/.test(value)
Python: re.match(r"^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$", value)
Java: Pattern.compile("^[A-Z]{2,3}/\\d{4}/\\d{4,8}$").matcher(value).matches()
C# / .NET: Regex.IsMatch(value, @"^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$")
Go: regexp.MustCompile(`^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$`).MatchString(value)
Ruby: /^[A-Z]{2,3}\/\d{4}\/\d{4,8}$/.match?(value)
PHP: preg_match('~^[A-Z]{2,3}/\d{4}/\d{4,8}$~', $value)

The explainer’s Code tab regenerates these for any pattern you paste, and the downloadable cheat sheet bundles the breakdown, all seven snippets, and the pitfalls below onto one printable page.

Common pitfalls

Anchored to the whole string. This pattern uses ^ and $, so it requires the entire input to match. To find it inside a longer text, drop the anchors and use the global (g) flag.
Uppercase only. Ranges like [A-Z] won't match lowercase. Add a-z (or the i flag) if lowercase input should be accepted.
Escape it correctly per language. In Java and JavaScript strings each backslash must be doubled (\\d); in Python, Go, and C# use raw/verbatim strings so the backslashes survive.
Validate beyond format. Matching the format doesn't guarantee the value is real. Confirm the trade license number against a source of truth (database, API, or checksum) where it matters.

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