$re = '/^GB(?:\d{3} ?\d{4} ?\d{2}(?:\d{3})?|[A-Z]{2}\d{3})$/m';
$str = 'GB999999973
GBGD001
GBHA599
GB999 9999 73';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php