Luhn algorithm · Lablypedia

The algorithm is in the public domain and is in wide use today. It is specified in ISO/IEC 7812-1. It is not intended to be a cryptographically secure hash function; it was designed to protect against accidental errors, not malicious attacks. Most credit card numbers and many government identification numbers use the algorithm as a simple method of distinguishing valid numbers from mistyped or otherwise incorrect numbers.

Description

The check digit is computed as follows:

Drop the check digit from the number (if it's already present). This leaves the payload.
Start with the payload digits and double every second digit (a digit in an odd position in reversed order) when numbered from the left.
Process the payload from right-to-left. If a doubled digit exceeds 9, subtract 9 from the digit.
Sum all the resulting digits (including the ones that were not doubled).
The check digit is calculated by $(10 - (s mod 10)) mod 10$ , where s is the sum from step 4. This is the smallest number (possibly zero) that must be added to $s$ to make a multiple of 10.
Other valid formulas giving the same value are $9 - ((s + 9) mod 10)$ , $(10 - s) mod 10$ , and $10 ⌈ s / 10 ⌉ - s$ . Note that the formula $(10 - s) mod 10$ will not work in all environments due to differences in how negative numbers are handled by the modulo operation.

Example for computing check digit

Assume an example of an account number 1789372997 (just the "payload", check digit not yet included):

The sum of the resulting digits is 56.

The check digit is equal to $(10 - (56 mod 10)) mod 10 = 4$ .

This makes the full account number read 17893729974.

Example for validating check digit

Drop the check digit (last digit) of the number to validate. (e.g. 17893729974 → 1789372997)
Calculate the check digit (see above)
Compare your result with the original check digit. If both numbers match, the result is valid. (e.g. (givenCheckDigit = calculatedCheckDigit) ⇔ (isValidCheckDigit)).

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Strengths and weaknesses

The Luhn algorithm will detect all single-digit errors, as well as almost all transpositions of adjacent digits. It will not, however, detect transposition of the two-digit sequence 09 to 90 (or vice versa). It will detect most of the possible twin errors (it will not detect 22 ↔ 55, 33 ↔ 66 or 44 ↔ 77).

Other, more complex check-digit algorithms (such as the Verhoeff algorithm and the Damm algorithm) can detect more transcription errors. The Luhn mod N algorithm is an extension that supports non-numerical strings.

Because the algorithm operates on the digits in a right-to-left manner and zero digits affect the result only if they cause shift in position, zero-padding the beginning of a string of numbers does not affect the calculation. Therefore, systems that pad to a specific number of digits (by converting 1234 to 0001234 for instance) can perform Luhn validation before or after the padding and achieve the same result.

The algorithm appeared in a United States Patent for a simple, hand-held, mechanical device for computing the checksum. The device took the mod 10 sum by mechanical means. The substitution digits, that is, the results of the double and reduce procedure, were not produced mechanically. Rather, the digits were marked in their permuted order on the body of the machine.

Pseudocode implementation

The following function takes a card number, including the check digit, as an array of integers and outputs true if the check digit is correct, false otherwise.

<b id="mwrA">function</b> isValid(cardNumber[1..length]) sum := 0 <b id="mwrQ">for</b> i from 1 to length <b id="mwrg">do</b> digit := cardNumber[i] offsetFromEnd := length - i <b id="mwrw">if</b> (offsetFromEnd mod 2) == 1 <b id="mwsA">then</b> sum := sum + digit <b id="mwsQ">elseif</b> digit < 5 <b id="mwsg">then</b> sum := sum + 2 * digit <b id="mwsw">else</b> sum := sum + 2 * digit - 9 <b id="mwtA">end if</b> <b id="mwtQ">end for</b> <b id="mwtg">return</b> (sum mod 10) == 0 <b id="mwtw">end function</b>

Uses

The Luhn algorithm is used in a variety of systems, including:

Credit card numbers
IMEI numbers
CUSIP numbers for North American financial instruments
National Provider Identifier numbers in the United States
Canadian social insurance numbers
Israeli ID numbers
South African ID numbers
South African Tax reference numbers
Swedish Personal identity numbers
Swedish Corporate Identity Numbers (OrgNr)
Greek Social Security Numbers (ΑΜΚΑ)
ICCID of SIM cards
European patent application numbers
Survey codes appearing on McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Tractor Supply Co. receipts
United States Postal Service package tracking numbers use a modified Luhn algorithm
Italian VAT numbers (Partita Iva)

In popular culture

In 1995, during a television spot \ segment about buying movie tickets online, actress Sandra Bullock jokingly remarked that a verification system was needed to catch typos when entering credit card numbers. The video resurfaced online in 2026, amusing users who jokingly credited the actress with inventing "two-factor authentication" though the concept she suggested actually aligns more accurately with the Luhn algorithm, which had been devised back in 1954.