ID Number Breakdown

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The first six digits (YYMMDD) are based on your date of birth
23 January 1988 would be written as : 88 01 23

The next four digits (SSSS) are used to define your gender
females are assigned numbers in the range 0000-4999
males are assigned numbers in the range 5000-9999

The next digit (C) shows if you are an
SA citizen – 0 – or a permanent resident – 1

The next digit (A) was used until the late 1980s to indicate a person’s race. This has been eliminated and old ID numbers were reissued to remove this.

The last digit (Z) is a checksum digit – used to check that the number sequence is accurate using the Luhn algorithm.