US Social Security Number (SSN) Regex for PHP

What this pattern does

This page provides a comprehensive, battle-tested regular expression for matching us social security number (ssn), ported and verified for PHP. Financial data validation has zero tolerance for false negatives — a missed invalid entry can corrupt downstream calculations. 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
// US Social Security Number (SSN)
// ReDoS-safe | RegexVault — Finance > Tax & Registration

define('US_SOCIAL_SECURITY_NUMBER_SSN_PATTERN', '/^(?!(?:000|666|9[0-9]{2})-)[0-9]{3}-(?!00-)[0-9]{2}-(?!0{4})[0-9]{4}$/');

function validate_us_social_security_number_ssn(string $input): bool {
    return (bool) preg_match(US_SOCIAL_SECURITY_NUMBER_SSN_PATTERN, $input);
}

// Example
var_dump(validate_us_social_security_number_ssn("123-45-6789")); // bool(true)

Test Cases

When to use this pattern

This pattern is drawn from the Finance > Tax & Registration 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

Invalid SSN ranges: 000-XX-XXXX (area 000), 666-XX-XXXX, 900-999-XX-XXXX. Group 00 and serial 0000 are also invalid. The pre-2011 geographic assignment pattern is no longer used.