The reference number is the one detail that unlocks your electricity bill online. It is printed on every bill, it never changes, and with it you can see your amount, your due date and your usage in about ten seconds. Without it you can do nothing at all. This guide covers exactly where it sits on each company’s layout, what to do when you have lost every copy of your bill, and the two situations — AJK and HAZECO — where a number that looks right still fails.
Where the reference number is printed
On every bill generated through the national PITC billing system — which is all twelve suppliers covered on this site — the reference number sits in the top-left corner, directly beneath the block carrying your name and address. Depending on the company it is labelled Reference No., Ref No. or Consumer No., but it is the same number in each case.
The quickest way to identify it on an unfamiliar layout: it is normally the longest continuous run of digits on the page. Your meter number is shorter. Your account or consumer ID, where one is printed separately, is shorter again. If you are looking at two candidate numbers, the longer one is almost always the reference number.
What it looks like on four different companies’ bills
The corner is consistent but the surrounding layout is not, so it helps to see it in place. These are annotated bills from four companies with quite different formats.
Why it is 14 digits
On the mainland companies the reference number is a 14-digit code, and the length is not arbitrary. The digits are structured: leading groups identify the distribution company and the sub-division that maintains your connection, and later groups identify the specific consumer account within it. That structure is why the billing system can resolve your bill from the number alone, with no name, address or password.
It also explains two things people find surprising. First, the number belongs to the connection, not to you — it survives a change of tenant or owner, so a bill in a previous occupant’s name still carries the number you need. Second, a single mistyped digit will not produce a “close” result or a helpful error; it will simply return nothing, because the wrong digits resolve to a sub-division or account that does not exist.
If you have lost every copy of your bill
This is the genuinely difficult case, because there is no public database that will look your number up from your name or address. In rough order of how quickly they work:
- Ask whoever paid it last. A landlord, a family member or a previous tenant will have it on a receipt or in a payment app’s biller list. Wallet apps such as JazzCash and Easypaisa keep saved billers, and the saved entry contains the number.
- Check your bank or wallet payment history. If you have ever paid the bill electronically, the transaction record will show the reference number you paid against. This is the fastest route for most people and the one most often overlooked.
- Ask a neighbour on the same feeder. Not to use their number, but because reference numbers on the same sub-division share their leading digits — which tells your distribution company exactly where to look when you call.
- Go to your company’s customer service centre with your CNIC. They can match the connection from their own records. Take the meter number with you, photographed off the meter itself, because it is what lets them find the account quickly.
Can you get it from the meter number?
Not by yourself. The meter number is stamped on the meter and identifies the physical device; the reference number identifies the billing account attached to it. There is no public tool that converts one to the other, and any website offering to do so should be treated with suspicion.
Your distribution company can make the match, because both are in its records. So the meter number is worth photographing before you visit an office — it turns a difficult enquiry into a quick one. Each of our twelve company pages lists that company’s own offices and complaint routes.
The two cases where a correct-looking number still fails
Azad Jammu & Kashmir: fewer than 14 digits
AJK is supplied by a government department rather than a NEPRA-licensed distribution company, and its billing records have their own history. Older AJK bills carry a shorter reference number than the mainland 14 digits. That is not a misprint and it must not be padded with zeros — type it exactly as printed. If an older number returns nothing, the record has most likely been renumbered, and the number on a recent bill is the one the system now recognises. See the AJK page for how the department differs from a DISCO.
Hazara: numbers changed on 1 July 2025
HAZECO began operating independently of PESCO on 1 July 2025. Billing records for Abbottabad, Mansehra, Haripur, Battagram, Torghar and the Kohistan districts were migrated into HAZECO’s own structure, and the sub-division portion of many reference numbers changed with them. A number copied from a bill issued before that date will frequently return nothing at all. Use the number printed on a recent HAZECO bill; from then on it is stable again.
Once you have it, keep it somewhere sensible
Because the number never changes, noting it once removes the problem permanently. Save it in your phone’s notes, or add your company as a saved biller in whichever payment app you use — that stores the number and doubles as a record of what you have paid.
One caution: the reference number is semi-private. Anyone who has it can pull up your bill, which shows your name and address. It cannot be used to take money from you or to change anything about the connection, but it is a good reason not to post a photograph of your bill in a public group. That is also how fake “subsidy verification” scams harvest details — see how to spot them.
Use it now
With the number in hand, checking takes about ten seconds and costs nothing. Enter it on the homepage, or go straight to your company’s page. For what every line on the bill means once it loads, see our annotated sample bill, and for the step-by-step lookup including what to do when it fails, see how to check your bill online.