How to Verify a U.S. Postal Address
When you send a package in the mail in the United States, it is important to ensure that the recipient’s address is correct so that your package is delivered on time and doesn’t get lost. How can you verify a U.S. postal address to ensure that it is correct and meets the United States Postal Service standards?
The U.S. postal address format is pretty straightforward. It includes the recipient’s name; house number and street name (including apartment or suite number, if applicable); city/town/village, two-letter state abbreviation, and ZIP code. While it is recommended to use the ZIP+4 code for more efficient delivery, it is not required.
The most important thing to verify about a postal address is that the ZIP code matches the rest of the address. ZIP codes are assigned to geographic areas for mail routing purposes and serve as the primary identifier of the shipping destination. For most of a package’s route, only the ZIP code matters for delivery to the destination city, village, or town. The rest of the address is only required for the final leg of delivery.
If you write the wrong ZIP code, your package will be delivered to the post office associated with that code. Depending on how incorrect the code is, the post office may be in another part of the destination city, a different city, or even a different state. If the employees at that post office can identify the correct destination post office using the rest of the address, the package will be rerouted there but will arrive late. Otherwise, the package will be marked as undeliverable and returned to the sender.
Postal address validation tools verify addresses by checking them against official USPS records to ensure they have the correct ZIP code and actually exist. The USPS has a ZIP code lookup tool that helps you find the correct ZIP code for an address. Simply enter the address and click “Find”. The tool will provide the correct ZIP code if you didn’t enter one or entered an incorrect one. It will also verify that the street address exists. If there are errors in the street address (for example, there is no such building number on this street or no such street in this city), you will receive a notification.
The USPS provides an Address Validation API to third-party services, including shipping label printing services. For instance, when purchasing a shipping label online with PostageMaker, the address entered in the form is automatically checked against the USPS database. If the system cannot find the address in the database, you will not be able to proceed until you correct errors in the address.
However, keep in mind that address verification tools only validate the main components of an address, such as the building number, street name, city, state, and ZIP code. It is your responsibility to ensure that the apartment or suite number and any additional delivery instructions are correct.
A small error in the address is not the end of the world because it does not necessarily make a package undeliverable. However, it will probably cause delays, so it’s best to verify the recipient’s address before shipping anything with USPS – or any other delivery service, for that matter.