ID Number Regex

Validate the ID number format to prevent failed ID lookups due to invalid format

The most common reason for failure of an ID lookup is because the end user did not input their ID number correctly. One of the best ways to mitigate this is to validate ID numbers on the client-side, before sending them to Smile ID. Below we will provide validation regexes for most of our ID types. It is important to note that they change over time, and we will do our best to keep this page updated.

Know Your Customer (KYC)

Country	Country Code	id_type	Regex
		🇨🇮
Côte d'Ivoire	CI	NATIONAL_ID_NO_PHOTO	/^[0-9]{11}$/ /^[A-Za-z]\d{10}$/
Côte d'Ivoire	CI	RESIDENT_ID_NO_PHOTO	/^[0-9]{11}$/ /^[A-Za-z]\d{10}$/
		🇬🇭
Ghana	GH	GHANA_CARD	/^[A-Z]{3}-?\d{9}-?\d$/i
Ghana	GH	PASSPORT	/^[A-Z]{1,2}[0-9]{6,7}$/i
Ghana	GH	SSNIT	/^[a-zA-Z]{1}[a-zA-Z0-9]{12,14}$/i
Ghana	GH	VOTER_ID	/^[0-9]{10,12}$/
Ghana	GH	NEW_VOTER___ID	/^[0-9]{10,12}$/
		🇰🇪
Kenya	KE	ALIEN_CARD	/^[0-9]{6,9}$/
Kenya	KE	KRA_PIN	/^[0-9]{1,9}$/
Kenya	KE	NATIONAL_ID	/^[0-9]{1,9}$/
Kenya	KE	NATIONAL_ID_NO_PHOTO	/^[0-9]{1,9}$/
Kenya	KE	PASSPORT	/^[A-Z0-9]{7,9}$/
Kenya	KE	TAX_INFORMATION	/^[Aa]\d{9}[a-zA-Z]$/
		🇳🇬
Nigeria	NG	BVN	/^[0-9]{11}$/
Nigeria	NG	NIN_V2 *	/^[0-9]{11}$/
Nigeria	NG	NIN_SLIP	/^[0-9]{11}$/
Nigeria	NG	PHONE_NUMBER	/^[0-9]{11}$/
Nigeria	NG	VOTER_ID	/^[a-zA-Z0-9 ]{9,29}$/i
		🇿🇦
South Africa	ZA	NATIONAL_ID	/^[0-9]{13}$/
South Africa	ZA	NATIONAL_ID_NO_PHOTO	/^[0-9]{13}$/
South Africa	ZA	PHONE_NUMBER	/^[0-9]{10}$/
		🇺🇬
Uganda	UG	NATIONAL_ID_NO_PHOTO	/^[A-Z0-9]{14}$/i
		🇿🇲
Zambia	ZM	BANK_ACCOUNT	Varies per bank
	ZM	TPIN	/^[0-9]{10}$/

*: Tokenized version of the NIN