French postal codes and the French address format (2023)

Postal codes in France are similar to postal codes in the United States. For example, himPostal Code/ The postal code of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, France is 75007. Paris has about 20 zip codes or postal codes. These codes help La Poste (the French postal service) sort and deliver mail and packages efficiently.

(If you are looking for the postal code of a specific address in France, you can use it for freeMailing Address Verification Tool.)

contents

• French postal codes
• French address example
• french address format
• the late
• La Poste Dienste
• postal bans
• conclusion

French postal codes

A French postal code currently consists of five digits made up entirely of numbers; no letters, no spaces, no hyphens, similar to the US ZIP code system. La Poste does not useZip Codes + 4. There are more than 30,000 officially recognized postal codes in France.

(If you are looking for the postal code of a specific address in France, you can use it for freeMailing Address Lookup Tool)

The composition of the postal codes is based on the so-called "Départements" - administrative subdivisions that more or less resemble aEE. UU.-Bezirk. The first two digits correspond to the number of the department in which the destination city is located. Department numbers were originally assigned in alphabetical order in the 18th century, although there have been a number of small changes to the list over the years, so the organization is not as strict as it used to be. The other three numbers in the code indicate which post office actually does the shipping work.

Most ZIP codes end in zero, although there are some exceptions. These exceptions include some of the largest cities, overseas territories, and PO Boxes, to name a few. Some ZIP codes span multiple villages, which is often because all of those villages are served by the same post office. Sometimes, one of these towns may belong to another department, which means that the first two digits of the postal code do not match the department of that town. This is very similar to how the zip code system works.U.S.

Another example of deviations from the strict system is the so-called "CEDEX", which meansCommercial mail with exceptional distribution, or "Special Business Mail". This term applies to several different categories of special mail, including recipients who receive high volumes of mail and PO Boxes. An individual postal code is given for all of them. This is comparable to systems in other countries where a particular building, organization or business may need its owndesignated zip code.

French address example

Here is an example of a correctly formatted French address:

The address must be placed in the lower right corner of the front of the envelope.

Captain Jean Luc PICARD Address52 RUE DES FLEURS Street number and name 33500 LIBOURNE Postcode + cityFRANCE Destination notation

french address format

The three most important details in any French address are the consignee (or addressee), the street, and the postal code/city, as in most countries. These are the lines that will be included in each direction. Additional information is often used to add specificity or clarity to delivery instructions.

Here is the order of address details in a French address. Note: Required items are in BOLD.

Line 1: Name, title and other courtesies

Line 2:Secondary address information(apartment number, etc.) – optional

Line 3: Access information (building name, entrance/location number, etc.) - optional

Line 4: street name and house number

Line 5: Additional information about the delivery service (PO box, lieu-dit, etc.) - optional

Line 6: ZIP code and name of the city or other applicable place

Line 7: Country of destination - optional (only required for international mail)

The French postal address format supports a surprising amount of additional information. However, the format is quite strict. To begin with, the address cannot have more than six lines (seven for international). There is also a lot of CAPS LOCK. We'll show you what we mean.

The example address we shared earlier in this article was a pretty standard French address. It's about as short as an address can be. It could be shorter if it is a national letter and the international line is not needed. If so, it would look like this:

kpt. Jean Luc PICARD Linie 152 RUE DES FLEURS Linie 433500 LIBOURNE Linie 6

A French address can be that simple. The point is that there can be up to twice as many rows. Therefore, you may find the following instead:

Monsieur Jean LAFONTAINE Line 1Chez Mireille COPEAU Apartment 3 Line 2Entrance To Jonquille Building Line 325 RUE DE L EGLISE Line 4CAUDOS Line 533380 MIOS Line 6FRANCE Line 7

The only two remaining details that need to be discussed here are company addresses and CEDEX addresses (which are not mutually exclusive). A company address, for lack of better words, puts a supervisor above the recipient, which moves the recipient's name to the second line. To realize:

CSNUName of the companyMCPO Juan Sienarecipient(done with secondary delivery information)Industrial area additional geographical information117 RUE DES FLEURS name and street number02552 LIBOURNE postcode and municipality/cityFRANCE national destination

Apart from the corporation's self-affirmation to the ultimate recipient, the address remains unchanged. Company names (or at least the last word of the name) are also capitalized, similar to recipients' last names.

Well, to complicate things a bit more: CEDEX addresses are addresses with their own zip code, which is more common for PO Boxes. For example, if this business address were a PO Box and not an inside building address, it would look like this:

UNSC Company Name MCPO Jean Sienne Address Industrial Zone Additional Geographic Information 117 RUE DES FLEURS Street Name and Number BP 343 PO Box Number 02552 LIBOURNE CEDEX Postal Code and CEDEX Delivery Office Domestic Destination FRANCE

The PO box number, preceded by the letters 'BP' for 'Boîte Postale' or 'PO Box', takes its place on the fifth line and the word 'CEDEX' is added after the post office location in capital letters. the mailbox neithersubstitutethe recipient's physical address; that keeps its place on the children's table fresh.

Now there's the confusing reason why this becomes a problem: sometimes the post office where the PO box is located is not in the city where the recipient has an address. Is there a solution for this. Simply add the post office location to the PO Box number line, like so:

Xavier's School CompanyMademoiselle Jeanne GRAY AddresseeRésidence les Capucines Geographic information56 RUE EMILE ZOLA Street and numberBP 90432 MONTFERRIER SUR LEZ PO Box + City34092 MONTPELLIER Postal code CEDEX 5 and CEDEX delivery office

You may notice that in this last example the CEDEX had a number; This is the case when a city has several post offices to indicate the destination.

the late

La Poste is the main post office for the nation of France. WhatMiscellaneousMail- OffererAs we've discussed here at Smarty, France has a long and rich postal history, and it's a diversified organization that capitalizes on that history to serve its customers in a variety of ways. Services offered include traditional postal services, banking and insurance, real estate, and a cellular network. Although it is not evaluable asDHL/German PostThey are a major organization: they are the second largest employer in France, behind only the French government. La Poste is the result of more than 800 years of postal efforts; Here are some highlights from that story.

It began in the Middle Ages with private companies. Universities have been the big players since the 13th century, which makes sense: a large group of people who need to exchange information with other groups of intellectuals on a regular basis. 1576 saw the debut of the "Royal Envoys", the first state postal organization to offer services to individuals in France. Eventually, the use of royal envoys led to the establishment of the first post offices later in the century.

Fast forward another hundred years and France saw the first telegramin the world. Fifty years later, France began using postage stamps, less than a decade after the UK invented them. And in 1874 France was one of the founding members of what was then the General Postal Union; We now know this organization as the Universal Postal Union, or UPU.

You may have been confused by the mention of the telegraph and thought, "That's cool, but what does this have to do with the post office?" The Post Office managed the telegraph service, giving rise to the name P&T (Postes ettélégraphes; which, as you may have guessed, means 'post and telegraph' in English). When phones were invented, they took over here, too, changing their name to PTT (Postes, télégraphes et téléphones; which means...actually, you probably have this phone).

The year 1964 saw the rise of postal codes in France, and in the 1990s the PTT split. The company was dismantled following the line "Does it have a postman?", separating telecommunications from the post office. The postal service became La Poste and the other part became France Télécom, now known as "Orange". Like the colour.

Orange almost immediately became a private company, but La Poste has resisted such progressive moves; only in 2005 did they open their monopoly to competition (for competitors likeDHL) and as of 2015 it still has "public company" status, even though La Poste's contemporaries such as the Royal Mail and Deutsche Post have made the leap to privatization.

La Poste Dienste

After DHL, La Poste is the second largest provider of postal services in Europe; They own an impressive 15% of the market. La Poste also offers one of the widest ranges of services possible for a business like yours. Its full name is "Groupe La Poste" and it is a large umbrella that contains the following subsidiaries:

• the post bank
• Geopost
• The mobile post dies
• Mediaprisma
• Dokapost
• after yes

The Banque Postale is a bank. It offers regular banking services as well as insurance. Geopost covers logistics, and apparently that's a big deal. They are a roof within a roof and house all the Express subsidiaries. In France, these are the Chronopost and Exapaq courier services. Globally, these are the DPD, Yurtiçi Kargo and Seur GeoPost brands.

La Poste Mobile is a wholemobile phone, mobile phonenetwork (yes, like the ones with 4G LTE) managed by a parent company that also manages email. Mediaprism is a communication consultancy, Docapost is in charge of document archiving and Poste Immoproperty(of all things). So yes, they're casting a pretty wide net, and that net is helping to offset the downturn in business caused by the rise of Internet communications.

Now to La Poste itself - they offer first class, second class and "green letters" delivery. Green Letter is a greener alternative, launched in 2011, producing 15% less CO2 than First Class. At the time of writing this report, it represents around 20% of the French market.

Now let's put all that aside and talk about them.Yes reallyfun things.

postal bans

It is important to know what can and cannot be mailed. But while many prohibited items are just common sense (like substances that could turn the mail van into another Hindenburg), others require a bit of attention. Otherwise, we may not know the dangers of balloons [anchor tag] or send a cat with ambiguous vitality [anchor tag].

So we've put together a handy list of things you shouldn't send, but wouldn't otherwise think of yourself. Now La Poste does not have an official list in English of what is allowed to be shipped to and within the country of France. And although we are all talented here in many thingsIntelligent(anteriormente Smarty Streets), only two of us speak passable French.

To address this shortcoming, we have researched and found out what other postal service providers can send to France and the French postal system. We believe that if other reputable couriers cannot send it, you will have a hard time getting in and out of the country. Here is the list:

• Certain hormones from American beef
  • Why would you do that and where do you get them from?
• Collectible stamps:
  • We just have to laugh at the irony of using a postage stamp to send a stamp.
  • Plus, can you get away with using the collectible stamp on the envelope?
• doping products:
  • drugs are bad children; stay in school
• Floppy disks:
  • Does anyone know what those are?
• "Dura mater (the tough fibrous membrane that covers the brain and spinal cord and lines the inner surface of the skull)":
  • hope for
• play equipment:
  • It's a bad habit anyway
• Deer:
  • They mention in particular two animals with strange names: the chamois or therupicapra rupicapra(not to be confused with "chupacabra") andGroundhogoGroundhog Groundhog
• Cannabis Hanf:
  • See comment "Drugs are bad" above
• Melatonin:
  • Apparently you don't expect a good night's sleep in France.
• "Clinical thermometers containing mercury for human consumption":
  • Since when has mercury been used for human consumption?
• "Non-fire retardant synthetic fiber pajamas and nightgowns":
  • That's...uncomfortably specific again.
• Plastic plates:
  • Apparently Chinese plastic tableware can sometimes be unhealthy
• Playing cards:
  • Dangerous in the hands of the player again... or Gambit
• Personal effects:
  • This is literally as specific as it gets on the subject and we can't help but wonder what this all implies.
• Products made in Iran:
  • This would normally warrant an "everything they make, we don't want that" joke, but this is obviously a serious embargo, so no Iranian products.
• "Erasers resembling food products in appearance that can be easily ingested":
  • That's... uncomfortably specific.
• Shoes:
  • hope for
• Sports team:
  • Neither card games nor sports equipment are likely to bore you
• Silicone for plastic surgery:
  • There's a "send a piece of yourself" joke and a "pound of meat" joke; Give us a moment, we'll find it.
• viagra and vitamins
  • No comment

undelivered mail

Mail in France cannot be delivered for the same reasons as in most places: bad addresses. The most obvious example is an incorrect address. If you send a letter to "5 Pivot Drive" but the letter is addressed to "4Pivot Drive”, the publication may not be deliverable. A quick-thinking postman could spot the mistake and work with the recipient names, but if the difference between the addressed mail and the intended destination is more serious, you might be out of luck.

Emails can also be returned to sender.because the intended recipients are no longer the current residents. If they have moved and have not left a forwarding address, the mail cannot be delivered. The same applies to invalid addresses: if the address is not registered with the post office, or there is no recipient in the address, or there is noneAddress(ie there is no building to deliver there), then the mail will not be delivered there.

In short, it might be helpful to double check your address andConfirmbefore trying to send. It's as quick as pressing a buttonclick, but it can save you the price of returning it and waiting weeks or months.

conclusion

France is a great place: you have the city of love, the Eiffel Tower and good food. Their postal system is equally impressive and they will gladly deliver or forward your letter to your pen pal who lives on the banks of the Seine.Memory(which in French means "souvenir") at home when you visit.

If you are looking for additional information about them,uscan help you find what you need. we can help you tooverify an addressas mentioned above, so feel free to do that too. Especially when shipping to France, remember to limit it to six (or seven) lines and use that CAPS LOCK responsibly.