United Kingdom Address Format Guide: Structure & Examples

Jul 9, 2025

Updated: July 9, 2025

Table of Contents

United Kingdom Address Format Guide

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

United Kingdom - Address Format

An address format in United Kingdom contains the following elements:

Recipient’s name
Business or department name (if applicable)
Flat/Unit/Building Name (if applicable)
House number and street name
Locality (where locality differs from the city)
CITY NAME (in all caps)
Postcode (7 digits)
Country – UNITED KINGDOM (in all caps)

John Smith
395 Wilmslow Rd
MANCHESTER
M20 4WA
UNITED KINGDOM

United Kingdom Address Format Examples

Example 1:

John Smith
4 Church Street
West Coker
YEOVIL
BA22 9BD
UNITED KINGDOM

Example 2:

City of London Post Office
12 Eastcheap
LONDON
EC3M 1AJ
UNITED KINGDOM

Postal and Country Information for United Kingdom

Country/territory name	United Kingdom
ISO codes	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2: GB ISO 3166-1 alpha-3: GBR ISO 3166-1 numeric-1: 826
Administrative area count	5
Administration area names and abbreviations	England Northern Ireland Scotland Wales	ENG NIR SCT WLS
Term to describe postal codes	Postcode
Postal code format	AA9 9AA
Population	63 314 136
Total land area	244 535km²

How to Validate Addresses for United Kingdom Using GeoPostcodes Database

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

Use GeoPostcodes:

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

You can leverage GeoPostcodes data to validate addresses in United Kingdom using:

Street column to validate Street names
Locality column to validate Localities (if applicable)
Post Town column to validate City names
Postcode column to validate Postal Codes

Explore our United Kingdom address database.

Our location dataset for United Kingdom

United Kingdom ZIP Codes

The United Kingdom uses a “Postcode” system, which is an alphanumeric format like AA9 9AA. This format typically consists of six to eight characters, with a space separating the outward code (area and district) from the inward code (sector and unit). The GeoPostcodes world postal code database indicates that the United Kingdom has 1,795,653 postcodes covering 402 regions and 32,082 towns. Unlike the purely numeric five-digit US ZIP codes, the UK Postcode system is alphanumeric and more granular, often identifying a handful of addresses.

United Kingdom ZIP & Administrative boundaries

United Kingdom 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.

United Kingdom Administrative Divisions

GeoPostcodes provides a standardized reference for United Kingdom’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.