MeridianMERIDIAN

Australian Business Number

identity.government.abn

11-digit identifier for Australian businesses, issued by the Australian Business Register. May appear with or without spaces.

Casts to
VARCHAR
Scope
Locale-specific
Check digit
ABN weighted mod 89
Locales
EN_AU

Shape

Length 11 to 14 characters.

Pattern
^\d{2}\s?\d{3}\s?\d{3}\s?\d{3}$
ValueLengthShape
51 824 753 55614matches
5300408561611matches
91 345 678 90114matches
88 765 432 10914matches
51 824 753 5513rejected: one character short

Background

Origin

The ABN system was set up by the A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999, Act No. 84 of 1999.[1] The Act received the Royal Assent on 8 July 1999.[1] The Act's main object is to make it easier for businesses to conduct their dealings with the Australian Government.[1] It does this by establishing a system for registering businesses and issuing them with unique identifying numbers so that they can identify themselves reliably.[1] The Act also aims to reduce the number of government registration and reporting requirements by making the system available to State, Territory and local government regulatory bodies.[1]

The ABN was introduced on 1 July 2000 as part of a major tax reform.[2] That tax reform included the introduction of a GST.[2]

Use

The ABN is an 11 digit identifier issued to all entities registered in the Australian Business Register.[3] It is structured as a 9 digit identifier with two leading check digits.[3] The leading check digits are derived using a modulus 89 calculation.[3] To verify an ABN, subtract 1 from its first digit, multiply each of the 11 digits by the weights 10, 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17 and 19, and sum the products.[3] If that sum leaves a remainder of zero when divided by 89, the number is a valid ABN.[3] The ABR's own worked example, 51 824 753 556, is written in groups of two, three, three and three digits.[3] Strip spaces before comparing or joining ABNs, since the same number can arrive grouped or as a bare run of 11 digits. (Meridian's view) Run the modulus 89 check as well as a length check: a well-formed 11-digit string can still be a mistyped number. (Meridian's view)

The last nine digits of a company's ABN usually comprise its Australian Company Number (ACN).[4] The last 9 digits of an ABN do not always comply with the ASIC ACN algorithm.[4] The Australian Taxation Office's own ABN, 51 824 753 556, is given as an example of this.[4] Do not assume a nine-digit tail is a valid ACN, and do not derive one identifier from the other without checking each against its own register. (Meridian's view)

Where you'll meet it

The Australian Business Register publishes the ABN Bulk Extract on data.gov.au, with each entity's ABN, ABN status, entity type and ACN/ARBN among its attributes.[5]

Sources

  1. [1]A New Tax System (Australian Business Number) Act 1999documentation
  2. [2]Australian Business Numbersecondary source
  3. [3]Format of the ABN | ABN Lookupdocumentation
  4. [4]Australian Company Numbersecondary source
  5. [5]ABN Bulk Extract - Dataset - Data.gov.audataset

Detection notes

ABN includes a check digit algorithm based on modulus 89. The first two digits are derived from the check digit calculation.

Use it

CLI · DuckDB
$ finetype infer -i "51 824 753 556" --mode column
→ identity.government.abn

SELECT ft_infer('51 824 753 556');
-- → 'identity.government.abn'
Cast expression
CAST({col} AS VARCHAR)

Schema

https://meridian.online/schemas/identity.government.abn · Frictionless type string

finetype taxonomy identity.government.abn -o json-schema

Aliases

australian_business_number

Type Registry