Enter Your PIN
4-digit PINs: 10,000 possible combinations
What We Checked
Enter a PIN to see the breakdown.
Need a stronger PIN?
Skip the guesswork — generate a random PIN that automatically avoids every pattern this checker flags.
Generate a PIN →Why it's different
PINs aren't just short passwords
A 4-digit PIN has exactly 10,000 possible combinations — but real-world PIN choices are nowhere near evenly spread across them. Widely cited analysis of leaked 4-digit PIN datasets (most notably Nick Berry's 2012 DataGenetics study of roughly 3.4 million exposed PINs) found that a small handful of PINs —
1234, 1111, 0000, birthdays, and repeating patterns — account for a hugely disproportionate share of real usage, with the most common single PIN alone reportedly used by roughly 1 in 10 people. An attacker with a stolen device doesn't need to try all 10,000 combinations; they try the ~20 most common ones first and often succeed within seconds.
If your device allows it, prefer a 6-digit PIN or an alphanumeric passcode over a 4-digit one — and specifically avoid birth years, anniversaries, repeating digits, and straight lines on the keypad (like
2580). This checker flags all of those instantly, entirely on your device — your PIN is never transmitted anywhere.
Sources & Standards
Where this tool's guidance comes from
This tool's defaults and recommendations are built on the following official, internationally recognized standards and guidance — not opinion. Each link goes directly to the source.
PCI SSC
PIN Security Requirements
The global payment industry's official requirements for PIN selection, protection, and handling.
pcisecuritystandards.org →
ISO
ISO 9564-1:2017 — PIN Management and Security
The international standard for PIN management and security in card-based financial systems.
iso.org →
NIST
SP 800-63B-4 — Digital Identity Guidelines
Applies the same breach-screening and predictability principles used for passwords to short numeric secrets like PINs.
csrc.nist.gov →