Meaning of CURP - What it is, Definition and Concept

CURP is the acronym for the Unique Population Registration Code , an alphanumeric code that is made up of eighteen characters used in Mexico.That is to say, the CURP is a registration instrument assigned to all people for official identification throughout the country, either for those who live there or for those residing abroad.

The CURP began to be used as of October 23, 1996 to the Federal Public Administration since the Presidential Agreement for adoption and mandatory use was approved by public agencies.

The CURP was published in the Official Gazette of the Federation with the purpose of unifying the individual registration numbers of all citizens in all the dependencies of the National State. The main purpose is to provide legal certainty to the population carrying out the procedures in a simpler way, and eliminating the different registration keys of people.

Currently the CURP is used in a mandatory way for declarations of taxes, to officially register companies, schools, affiliations in health services, passport applications as well as used in all government agencies.

Elements that make up the CURP

• First letter and first vowel of the first surname


• First letter of the second surname


• First letter of the first name (in the case of Maria or Jose, the middle name is taken into account).


• Date of birth without leaving spaces, following the year-month-day order (For example 17-02-11 if it is the day February 11, 2017)


• Identifying letter of sex, being H for the man or M for the woman.


• Two letters referring to the entity of the birth (if born abroad it is identified as NE).


• First consonant of the first surname (it should not be the initial one but the internal one).


• First consonant of the second surname (it should not be the initial but the internal).


• First consonant of the name (it should not be the initial one but the internal one).


• A digit from 0 to 9 for those born before the year 1999 inclusive, and for those born from the year 2000 a digit from A to Z.


• An additional digit to avoid duplication.

CURP has already been incorporated into official documents such as passport, birth or death certificates, driver's license, paperwork and data related to the administration system tax, social security, health services, and other civil registration procedures in order to facilitate the provision of services.

The processing of the CURP, which is unique for each inhabitant , is done with the presentation of the birth certificate and the national identity document in the civil registry.

While the use of CURP is widespread and seemed to be a definitive solution to the long series of numbers that identified people in the different units, many of them still use their own official codes.