How to Address International Mail So It Arrives

An international letter is read twice, by two different postal systems. The post office where you drop it only needs one thing: the country. Everything above that line is for the destination post, which reads it with its own rules and its own machines. Once you see the address block that way, most of the rules follow on their own.

The two-reader rule

The last line is for your post office. It names the country, in capitals, in a language your post office understands. Deutsche Post asks for the destination country in capitals in German, French or English. Canada Post wants a country name it recognises in English or French, and its addressing guidelines give “UK” and “UAE” as examples of what not to write.

Everything above the last line is for the destination. That means the destination’s line order, its postcode position and its spelling of the city. Deutsche Post’s page on addressing letters abroad asks for the city in capitals and, where possible, in the language of the destination country.

1. RecipientName of a specific person or organisation. Canada Post requires one on all international items.
2. Unit or company lineOnly if needed: flat, suite, department.
3. Street lineIn the destination's order: 27 Harbour Road for the UK, Hauptstraße 5 for Germany.
4. City lineCity in capitals, postcode where the destination puts it.
5. CountryAlone, last line, capitals, full name: UNITED KINGDOM.

Source: Canada Post Addressing Guidelines; Deutsche Post

Postcode position: five countries, five habits

The biggest trap is assuming your own postcode habit is universal. The UPU address catalogue shows how differently five common destinations do it:

All five examples are taken from the respective operators’ entries in the UPU catalogue. For the UK, US and Germany we have detailed guides: UK address format, US address format and German address format.

Here is one complete example in each direction. From Germany to Canada:

JOHN JONES
MARKETING DEPT
10-123 1/2 MAIN STREET NW
MONTREAL QC H3Z 2Y7
KANADA

From the UK to Germany:

Herrn
Quincy Happy
Wacholderweg 52a
26133 OLDENBURG
GERMANY

The first uses the German name of the destination because a German post office reads that line first. Writing CANADA would work as well. The second keeps the German street order and gives the country in English for the British post office.

Country codes in front of postcodes: don’t

For years, Europeans wrote D-80331 München or F-75001 Paris. Postal operators no longer want that. Deutsche Post says plainly that no country codes go in front of the city or postcode on mail abroad, and its entry in the UPU catalogue warns that a D- or DE- before a German postcode can delay processing on sorting machines.

The reason is mechanical: address readers recognise a postcode by its pattern. DE-26133 does not match five digits, GB-EC1Y 8SY does not match a UK pattern, and the item drops out of automatic sorting.

Six lines, no frills

Canada Post limits international address blocks to six lines, and it is a sensible ceiling everywhere. If you need more than six, something is duplicated: a county the UK does not need, a region the destination does not use, or a phone number that belongs on the customs form.

Other habits that help across borders:

• Left-align every line, one font, one size. Deutsche Post asks for exactly this.
• Dark ink on a light background, no frames, no underlining.
• No punctuation at line ends. Canada Post allows it only inside proper names such as ST. JOHN’S.
• Put your own address on the item. If the letter cannot be delivered, it has to come back somewhere.
• For goods, attach the customs declaration the post office gives you. Its address fields should match the label exactly.

• Country on the last line, alone, spelled out, capitals
• No country code in front of the postcode
• Postcode in the position the destination uses
• City in capitals
• Six lines or fewer
• Return address on the item

Line lengths and other limits by country

Some postal operators set hard limits that a long street name or a company name can break. Two examples from their own documents:

• Ireland: An Post’s UPU entry asks for no more than 32 characters per line, not counting spaces, no punctuation and no empty lines. The county line can go when it repeats the town name.
• Canada: lines should stay under 40 characters excluding spaces, and lines must not be truncated. The # sign is never part of a Canadian address.

If your label software cuts lines at a fixed width, test it with a long Canadian street such as a rural route address. Cutting a line in half is worse than abbreviating a street type.

Destinations with their own quirks

US military addresses are the classic example. The UPU sheet for the United States states that military mail counts as US domestic mail and has to be posted in the United States or at a US military post office. An APO AE 09001 address sent directly from a European post office is outside that system.

Ireland’s Eircode gives each address its own code of seven characters: a three-character routing key and a four-character unique identifier, written with a space: T37 F8HK. It goes on its own line under the county.

Canada wants two spaces between the province code and the postal code on the last line, and the postal code in capitals with one space in the middle: H3Z 2Y7. The word CANADA appears only on mail coming from outside the country.

When the format is right but the address is wrong

Formatting gets a letter through the sorting machines. It does not fix a wrong house number or a postcode that belongs to the next town. The US Postal Service’s Inspector General counted 6.6 billion undeliverable-as-addressed pieces in fiscal year 2014, 4.3 percent of all mail, and that is domestic mail with a single set of rules. Cross-border mail adds language and format differences on top.

Our address format checker helps with the formatting half. Pick the destination and the country you are sending from, enter the parts, and it checks the postcode pattern for 15 countries and prints the lines in the destination’s order, adding the country line only when origin and destination differ. Shops that ship abroad every day usually want the same logic inside their order system, which is the kind of build a studio like OnlineBuilders does.

For your next international item, write the country line first, at the bottom of the space, and build the rest of the address upward from there.

Address format checker: Checks postcode format, house number and line order against the postal rules of the selected country, and prints the address in the format the post expects.

Questions people ask

In what language should I write the country name?

In a language your own post office can read. Deutsche Post accepts German, French or English; Canada Post wants a country name it recognises in English or French. English works for most senders worldwide.

Should I write the address in the destination country's script?

The street, city and postcode are read by the destination post, so local-language spelling helps there. The country line is read by your own post, so it must be in a language they understand. Deutsche Post asks for the city preferably in the destination country's language.

Can I write UK, USA or UAE as the country?

Canada Post explicitly lists UK and UAE as forms not to use and asks for the full name, United Kingdom or United Arab Emirates. Abbreviations are risky because sorting machines and staff in the origin country may not resolve them. Spell the name out.

How many lines can an international address have?

Canada Post caps international address blocks at six lines. That is a good rule anywhere: name, optional company or unit line, street, optional locality, city and postcode, and the country.