Lifestyle

6 Facts About Singapore’ NRIC Number You Didn’t Know

2018-06-19 , 1:50 pm

Last Updated on 2023-06-02 , 1:35 pm

In life, there are little things that you’ve never thought about that are actually pretty cool.

Like for example, did you know that men and women shirts have buttons on different sides?

So when we found out about the trivial yet frigging cool facts about Singapore’s NRIC number, we knew we had to share it with you.

1. S isn’t for Singapore

Back before the year 2000, it was a widely accepted belief that the alphabets before our NRIC number stand for the status of your citizenship—S for Singaporean, F for foreigners.

Apparently, we believed wrong.

The alphabet S is the 19th letter of the alphabet, and it is used for people who are born in the 1900s.

2. T wasn’t used because there’s no more space in S

When the Government first started issuing NRIC numbers starting with the letter ‘T’, most Singaporeans thought it’s because there’s no more space in S.

No, T was used because it is the 20th letter of the alphabet, and it’s used to separate kids born in the 2000s from kids born before.

3. It’s the same thing with F and G

If you’re holding an employment pass, student pass, etc before the year 2000, your identification number starts with F.

If you hold them after the year 2000, your identification will start with G.

4. The letter at the end of your NRIC is determined by a formula

Have you ever wondered why some people are given the letter A, some D, etc? Is it randomly given?

The answer is no. There is actually a formula the Government uses when they issue the identification number. The algorithm is not revealed to the public though. Kind of like Facebook algorithm #justsaying

5. First two numbers is the year, and the remaining numbers represent how many kids before you were born/registered for citizenship

For example, S8912345X means you’re born in the year 1989, and you’re the 12,345th kid to register your birth/citizenship.

This means you can most probably guess who’s born earlier just by looking at their NRIC numbers.

6. Special NRIC numbers for special people

Here are the first 7 NRIC numbers and who they’re issued to:

S0000001I (Yusof bin Ishak, first President of Singapore)
S0000002G (Wee Chong Jin, first Chief Justice of Singapore)
S0000003E (Lee Kuan Yew, first Prime Minister of Singapore)
S0000004C (Kwa Geok Choo, wife of Lee Kuan Yew)
S0000005A (Toh Chin Chye, first Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore)
S0000006Z (Goh Keng Swee, second Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore)
S0000007H (S Rajaratnam, first Minister for Culture)