France Address Format Guide: Structure & Examples

Jul 9, 2025

Updated: July 9, 2025

Table of Contents

France Address Format Guide

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the standard address format used in France. Whether you’re shipping packages, sending mail, or validating addresses for your business, understanding the proper address structure is essential for successful deliveries. We’ll cover the basic elements, provide examples, and explain how GeoPostcodes can help with address validation.

France - Address Format

An address format in France contains the following elements:

Recipient’s name
Business or department name (if applicable)
House number and Street Name
Postal Code (5 digits) and City Name
Country – FRANCE (in all caps)

John Smith
119 Av. Francis de Pressensé
69200 Vénissieux
FRANCE

France Address Format Examples

Example 1:

John Smith
142 Bd de la Blancarde
13004 Marseille
FRANCE

Example 2:

France Post Office
12 Rue Brémond
13013 Marseille
FRANCE

Postal and Country Information for France

Country/territory name	France
ISO codes	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: FR ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: FRA ISO 3166-1 numeric-1: 250
Administrative area count	96
Administration area names and abbreviations	Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes Bourgogne-Franche-Comte Brittany Region Centre Region Grand Est Hauts-de-France Ile-de-France Region Normandy Nouvelle-Aquitaine Occitanie Pays de la Loire Region Provence-Alpes-Cote d’Azur Region Corsica	ARA BFC BRE CVL GES HDF IDF NOR NAQ OCC PDL PAC 20R
Term to describe postal codes	Code postal
Postal code format	99999
Population	64 966 412
Total land area	549 146km²

How to Validate Addresses for France Using GeoPostcodes Database

GeoPostcodes offers comprehensive address validation database to validate France addresses. Our database ensures addresses follow the correct format for France, reducing delivery errors and improving efficiency.

Use GeoPostcodes:

Address Database to validate Street Names, Postal Codes and Cities in France
Postal Database if you only need to validate Postal Codes and Cities in France
Population Database if you would like to do urban/rural mapping or compute how many people live in France segmented by postal code, city or administrative divisions

You can leverage GeoPostcodes data to validate addresses in France using:

Street column to validate Street names
Postcode column to validate Postal Codes
Post Town column to validate City names

Explore our France address database.

Our location dataset for France

France ZIP Codes

France uses a “Code postal” system, which is a five-digit numeric format, like 99999, with no letters or separators. This means it uses only numbers, similar to US ZIP codes, which are also five digits and purely numeric. According to the GeoPostcodes world postal code database, France has 16,050 postal codes covering 35,172 regions and 39,597 towns.

France ZIP & Administrative boundaries

France administrative landscape often follows inconsistent regional models and irregular public sources, making it difficult to maintain reliable boundaries. Our standardized postal and administrative boundary data resolves these gaps to ensure complete, coherent geographic coverage.

France Administrative Divisions

GeoPostcodes provides a standardized reference for France’s address structure, ensuring consistent, accurate, and globally aligned formatting across your systems. The dataset captures the official address elements required by the national postal operator and maps them into our unified global schema.