Singapore NRIC (used as health ID) Regex for PHP

What this pattern does

This page provides a lightweight, single-purpose regular expression for matching singapore nric (used as health id), ported and verified for PHP. Identity and credential patterns need both correctness and safety, since they're frequent targets for adversarial input. The snippet below is ready to drop into your PHP project — whether you're validating in a Laravel validator, a WordPress plugin, or a standalone PHP script.

Php Implementation

<?php
// Singapore NRIC (used as health ID)
// ReDoS-safe | RegexVault — Identity & PII > Health Identifiers

define('SINGAPORE_NRIC_USED_AS_HEALTH_ID_PATTERN', '/^([STFGM][0-9]{7}[A-Z])$/');

function validate_singapore_nric_used_as_health_id(string $input): bool {
    return (bool) preg_match(SINGAPORE_NRIC_USED_AS_HEALTH_ID_PATTERN, $input);
}

// Example
var_dump(validate_singapore_nric_used_as_health_id("S1234567D")); // bool(true)

Test Cases

When to use this pattern

This pattern is drawn from the Identity & PII > Health Identifiers category and carries a ReDoS-safe certification. That matters for PHP developers because especially relevant in PHP where PCRE backtracking limits can trigger silent failures on malicious input. RegexVault audits patterns against known backtracking attack vectors, ensuring you have the necessary context before using this regex in a high-stakes production environment.

Common Pitfalls

Technical Notes

Singapore uses the NRIC number as the universal identifier across all government systems including healthcare. MOH (Ministry of Health), Polyclinic, and hospital systems all use NRIC as the patient identifier. See pii-nid-01 for full notes.