Finding Your India Post Tracking Number

The tracking number — also called a consignment number or article number — is assigned by India Post when an item is booked. Here is where to look for it, and how to read it.

Where to find it

The counter receipt

If you booked the item yourself, the receipt from the post office counter has the number printed or handwritten on it. It's usually labelled "Consignment No." or "Article No."

Sender's confirmation SMS or email

If someone sent something to you, they may have forwarded a booking confirmation from the post office system or shared the number directly.

The label on the package

If you already have the package (or a photo of it), the barcode label shows the tracking number below or beside the barcode.

Online store's order page

E-commerce sites that ship via India Post usually display the tracking number in your order details or shipment notification email.

Bank or government dispatch notifications

Items like PAN cards, passports and Aadhaar letters are usually sent as Speed Post by a bulk sender. The issuing authority often provides the tracking number via SMS, email or their online portal/application status page.

What it looks like

Most India Post tracking numbers are 13 characters: two letters, an eight-digit serial, a single check digit, then a two-letter country code.

EM123456789IN

The last two characters are the country of booking — "IN" for India. The two leading letters mark a broad service category, not a specific India Post product. Money orders and some domestic services use other formats.

What is not a tracking number

These are commonly confused with consignment numbers but won't work for tracking:

Order IDs — assigned by an online store (e.g., "ORD-2026-78432"). Not a postal number.

Reference numbers — internal identifiers from the sender's system.

Application numbers — used by banks and government bodies to track your application, not the physical mail.

Receipt or transaction numbers — payment receipts from the post office are not the same as the consignment number.

Check if a number is valid →Track a shipment →

India Post tracking number format

Trackable India Post articles generally use the Universal Postal Union's S10 identifier — 13 characters, made up of four parts:

EE123456789IN

EE: Service indicator — two letters marking the service category.
12345678: Serial number — eight digits.
9: Check digit — one digit derived from the serial, so a mistyped number can be detected.
IN: Country of booking — IN for India.

What the two letters mean

The S10 standard allocates the service indicator in ranges, and leaves the choice of a specific pair within a range to each national postal operator:

EA–EZ: Express items, including Speed Post and EMS
RA–RZ: Registered letter post
CA–CZ: Parcel post
LA–LZ: Tracked letter post
VA–VZ: Insured letter post

A note on prefix tables. Many sites publish exact mappings — that EE means one service, EM another, RX a third — and some claim the second letter encodes the booking state or circle. We could not trace any of those claims to an India Post or UPU document. India Post does not publish its per-service code allocation, so the range above is as specific as anyone can honestly be. Your receipt tells you which service you paid for; the number does not.

Electronic money orders use a longer numeric reference rather than the S10 format. Ordinary post and unregistered book post get no number at all, because they are not recorded individually.

Check whether your number is well-formed

Last reviewed: 20 August 2026. We recheck these pages when India Post changes its published information.