Look up or create a National Student Number

Search the National Student Index for a learner, one at a time or in bulk, and see exactly what NSI receives.

Staff portalWho: Registry staffLast updated 3 September 2026

Flow

Two routes to an NSN

Pallara does thisDecisionStaff actionDocument / file

Names are folded to NSI's character set on the way out only; the record keeps the macron.

The National Student Index is a Ministry of Education service, separate from TEC. Live NSN lookup, verification and creation need the provider's own Education Sector Logon machine account, configured under Administration → Integrations → NSI; TEC DXP credentials do not open this service.

Open Compliance → NSN Search. The page shows the integration status and how many learners are missing an NSN.
With the integration configured, look a learner up by name and date of birth, verify an NSN, or process a batch. A match returns the NSN and the recorded details; no match offers creation.
Without it, use Batch CSV Export → Download CSV and submit the file through the Ministry's own NSI application. Preview what would be sent → Build preview shows the batch file exactly as the Ministry would receive it — since the file is uploaded by hand, this is the only check it gets.

**FIG. 1**NSN Search: integration status, learners missing an NSN, the batch export and its preview.

NoteLearners marked as test records are excluded from the batch entirely, because a batch can mint a national identifier for somebody who does not exist.

Macrons

NSI's specification allows only alphabetic characters, space, hyphen and apostrophe in names. A learner called Māia is submitted to NSI as Maia, and Pallara reports what it changed. The stored name keeps the macron, and every other document — offer letters, certificates, exports — prints it correctly.

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Look up or create a National Student Number

Two routes to an NSN

Macrons

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