New Zealand Address Format Guide: Structure & Examples

Jul 9, 2025

Updated: July 9, 2025

Table of Contents

New Zealand Address Format Guide

In this comprehensive guide, we’ll explore the standard address format used in New Zealand. 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.

New Zealand - Address Format

An address format in New Zealand contains the following elements:

Recipient’s name
Business or department name (if applicable)
Street name and House number
Suburb (only in urban areas)
City Name and Postal Code (4 digits)
Country – NEW ZEALAND (in all caps)

John Smith
16 William Street
Hataitai
Wellington 6021
NEW ZEALAND

New Zealand Address Format Examples

Example 1:

John Smith
12 Mokonui Street
Te Anau 9600
NEW ZEALAND

Example 2:

New Zealand Post Office
280 Apirana Avenue
Glen Innes
Auckland 1072
NEW ZEALAND

Postal and Country Information for New Zealand

Country/territory name	New Zealand
ISO codes	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: NZ ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: NZL ISO 3166-1 numeric-1: 554
Administrative area count	17
Administration area names and abbreviations	Auckland Gisborne Marlborough Nelson Tasman Bay of Plenty Canterbury Greater Wellington Hawke’s Bay Manawatu Whanganui Northland Otago Southland Taranaki Waikato West Coast Chatham Islands	AUK GIS MBH NSN TAS BOP CAN WGN HKB MWT NTL OTA STL TKI WKO WTC CIT
Term to describe postal codes	Postal code
Postal code format	9999
Population	5 290 577
Total land area	267 946km²

How to Validate Addresses for New Zealand Using GeoPostcodes Database

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

Use GeoPostcodes:

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

You can leverage GeoPostcodes data to validate addresses in New Zealand using:

Street column to validate Street names
Suburb column to validate Suburbs (only in urban areas)
Post_Town column to validate City names
Postcode column to validate Postal Codes

Explore our New Zealand address database.

Our location dataset for New Zealand

New Zealand ZIP Codes

New Zealand uses a “Postal code” system, which is a four-digit numeric format, like 9999, with no letters or separators. This means it uses only numbers, unlike US ZIP codes which are also numeric. However, US ZIP codes are five digits long compared to New Zealand’s four. According to the GeoPostcodes world postal code database, New Zealand has 1,819 postal codes covering 83 regions and 2,451 towns.

New Zealand ZIP & Administrative boundaries

New Zealand 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.

New Zealand Administrative Divisions

GeoPostcodes provides a standardized reference for New Zealand’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.

Global Location Databases

Comprehensive location data products serving businesses, and
organizations worldwide with accurate, up-to-date geographic information.

Postal Code Database

Global dataset containing all administrative divisions, cities and zip codes.

Explore postal code database

Key features

247 Countries

9,9M Coordinates

9,3M Postal Codes

400 Time zones

4M Cities and Towns

116K UNLOCODES

Specifications

Coverage: Global

Format: CSV, ASC, DAT, GML, GeoJSON, KML, Shapefile (SHP)

Boundary Data

A global dataset of polygons representing postal codes and administrative areas.

Explore boundaries database

Key features

247 Countries

Up to 6 levels

1,7M boundaries

High-precision

245K Admin areas

Visualization

Specifications

Coverage: Global

Format: GeoJSON, Geopackage, KML, Shapefile (SHP)

Population Database

Global population estimates at postal code and administrative level covering a span of 55 years: past, present, and future.

Explore population database

Key features

247 Countries

243K Admin areas

55 year span

Yearly updates

645K ZIP codes

Specifications

Coverage: International

Format: CSV, ASC

Address Database

International dataset with all administrative areas, cities, streets, and relevant postal codes.

Explore address database

Key features

81 Countries

299 languages

26,5M streets

400 time zones

9.3M ZIP codes

4M cities

Specifications

Coverage: International

Format: CSV, ASC, DAT, GML, KML, Shapefile (SHP), GeoJSON

Global Postal Code Coverage

247 countries and territories with standardized formatting and reliable geographic information.

Related Countries

Australia

Address format