Ensuring Precise Mail Delivery

Enhance your business by adhering to address guidelines on your mailings — this will prevent any delays or additional expenses caused by excessive processing.

Within this article, you will discover:

• Guidelines for positioning addresses.
• Guidelines for placing graphics.
• Accurate address formats for Canadian, U.S., and international destinations.

Guidelines for positioning addresses

Employ these addressing recommendations for standard, large, and image-printed envelopes, ensuring that our processing equipment can scan your mail efficiently.

Standard envelope

Guidelines for placing graphics

On a large envelope

Accurate address formats

To steer clear of unwarranted delays or additional charges, abide by these addressing guidelines (visual examples provided):

• Utilize CAPITAL LETTERS when writing the STREET ADDRESS.
• Employ UPPERCASE LETTERS for POSTAL CODES and separate the initial 3 characters from the final 3 characters with a single space. (Please refrain from using hyphens as they can lead to delays)
• Place the municipality, province or territory, and postal code on the same line.
• Use a single space to separate the municipality from the province (or territory) and two spaces to separate the province (or territory) from the postal code.
• Avoid punctuations unless they form a component of a proper name, for instance, ST. JOHN'S.
• Format the return address in the same manner as the destination address and position it in the top-left corner of the envelope or package (or at the top on the back of the item).

Visual examples

Canadian civic addresses

United States addresses

International addresses

*Ensure the country name is spelled correctly for our processing equipment to comprehend.

Position the name of the country alone as the final entry in the address block below the city name and postal code/zip code. Spell the country name entirely, using capital letters (e.g.: write UNITED KINGDOM instead of UK).

Additional examples

These illustrated instances provide comprehensive explanations and useful tools for formatting other address types correctly.

Symbols and abbreviations

Ensure that your addresses remain concise in length in order to comply with the machineable guidelines. Accomplish this by incorporating abbreviations. Discover the approved abbreviated forms by Canada Post for:

Efficient addresses not only aid in cost reduction by eliminating redelivery and unnecessary handling, but they also contribute to the mitigation of your delivery's carbon footprint.