Can You Use Non-Latin Characters in an International Postal Address?

International postal services can be quite costly, so it is very important to get the recipient’s address right, otherwise there is a high probability that your postal card, letter, or package won’t reach its destination. The problem is, many countries use alphabets other than Latin, which can be confusing when you’re addressing an international mail item. Can you use non-Latin characters in an international postal address?

We’ll start by saying that most countries in the world are members of the Universal Postal Union (UPU); those that are not have their mail delivered through another member of the union. The UPU facilitates a uniform worldwide postal system and regulates international postal services, which includes addressing conventions such as the elements that may be included in an international address, formatting, and characters.

The UPU’s international addressing handbook clearly states that international addresses must be written in Roman (Latin) characters and Arabic numerals. However, it is possible and even recommended to add the address in the language of the country of destination if it uses other characters (Arabic, Chinese, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Japanese, Korean, etc.) to facilitate delivery for the destination country’s national postal service.

In such a case, the address block area on an envelope/shipping label must include the address twice: once in Roman characters and once in the language of the destination country. The placement of two variants of the address will depend on the requirements of the country of origin. For example, when you’re shipping from the United States, you must follow the requirements of the United States Postal Service (USPS), which state that addresses in characters other than Latin must bear an interline translation in English.

If you don’t know the English translation, you must write the foreign language words in Latin characters. For example, “вул. Франка” in a Ukrainian address can be translated as “Franko str.” or transliterated as “vul. Franka”, either variant is acceptable. The translation or transliteration must include the complete address and the addressee’s full legal name.

When you don’t have the opportunity to include the recipient’s address in two languages (for example, the address area on the envelope/shipping label is too small or you generate shipping labels online and the service you use allows to include only one version of the address), you must write it in Latin characters.

We would also like to stress that it is important to get the name of the destination country right. The name of the country of destination is always written on the last line in uppercase letters; there must be no other address elements on that line.

When you’re shipping from the United States, the name of the destination country must be written in English. When you’re shipping from a country where English isn’t the primary language, it is generally recommended to include the name of the destination country twice, in the language of the country of origin and in English. The rule of thumb when writing the name of the destination country is to comply with the recommendations of the postal service of the country of origin.

When you write the remainder of the address, you must follow the recommendations of the destination country’s postal authorities, even if the address itself is in Latin characters. You can find addressing formats of all UPU member states on the UPU website. Follow the link, click on Postal Addressing Systems (PAS) in the menu on the left, select the destination country from a drop-down list, and click Download to download a PDF file with addressing instructions for that country.

So, let’s sum everything up. Addresses on international letters and packages should be written in Latin characters and Arabic numerals; if the destination country uses other letters and numerals, you can duplicate the address in its language. The name of the destination country must be written in the language (or one of the languages) used in the country of origin and in English.