Address Requirements Deutsche Post

Letters to Germany, once printed, are forwarded to Deutsche Post for delivery. To ensure that your letters can be processed smoothly and for the agreed prices by Deutsche Post, it is important that the recipient addresses comply with specific requirements.

In this article, we have summarised the most important address requirements of Deutsche Post for you.

Since October 1st 2023, Pingen checks the recipient address of letters to Germany for additional requirements in order to support our customers as well as possible in complying with these requirements. Learn more about the address checks of Pingen

If there are problems processing the recipient's address, Deutsche Post may reject the letter or only deliver it for a surcharge. In such cases there will be no refund and any surcharges will be passed on by Pingen, as it is the sender's responsibility to ensure correct addressing

Address Requirements Deutsche Post:

Address Positioning

To make the recipient's address clearly legible in the envelope window, the address must be placed within the address area. The following dimensions must be observed:

• Distance from the edge: 22 mm from the left (x), 60 mm from the top (y)
• Address Area Size: 85.5 mm x 25.5mm

Address Structure

To ensure that the recipient's address can be processed by Deutsche Post, the following order must be respected:

• Salutation (optional)
• Recipient Name
• Further recipient designations (optional)
• Write street and house number or P.O. box and P.O. box number in one line in this order. Add supplementary notes (staircase C, backyard, flat 7) separated by a double slash (//) after the house number.
• 5-digit postcode and destination in one line in this order, without a comma separation between postcode and destination. Additional information about the recipient country (country code or ISO code) must be omitted.
• For Organisations with the default recipient country Germany, it is mandatory to omit the recipient country name (e.g. Germany, DE, D).

Usually accepted by Deutsche Post:

Usually not accepted by Deutsche Post:

Fonts

Deutsche Post defines specific information regarding font formatting:

Font Size (Height of verse)
‍Minimum: 2.3 mm
Maximum: 4.7 mm
Recommended font size for many typefaces:
10 pt to 12 pt in "regular" (normal) font style

Character Spacing
End of a character to the beginning of the next character:
Minimum: 0.2 mm
Maximum: 0.4 mm

Word spacing
‍The space between blocks of digits and words:
Minimum: 1.0 mm
Maximum: 4.0 mm
Usually one or two spaces

Line Spacing (Weft)
‍Uniform line spacing between the descenders of the top line and the ascenders of the bottom line for the entire address:
Minimum: 0.5 mm
Maximum: 2.5 mm

Font & Color
For the recipient's address to be properly read, a clear font with an easily readable font size is mandatory.

• Recommended fonts: Arial, Frutiger, Helvetica, Times or Univers
• Uniform font
• Font colour: Black
• No italics or decorative fonts
• No serif fonts
• No fonts with connected letters
• No 3D or shaded fonts

Usually not accepted by Deutsche Post:

Further details on the design:

Deutsche Post specifies further requirements for address design:

• According to DIN 5008, the address block must be left-aligned
• No blank lines between the address lines
• Uniform line spacing for the entire address
• Neither postcode nor city must be underlined or blocked out.
• Use of exclusively Latin characters and Arabic numerals

Usually not accepted by Deutsche Post:

You can find detailed documentation of the requirements here: https://www.deutschepost.com/content/dam/dp-int/Business-Customers-Europe/Downloads/dp-com-mail-automation-0322020.pdf

Address verification by Pingen (since October 1st 2023)

To help you meet the requirements of Deutsche Post, Pingen checks the recipient address for compliance with additional requirements since October 1st 2023 for letters to Germany.

If Pingen detects that a document does not comply with the address requirements, it will receive the status "Action required" after upload. The "cover page feature" enables you to correct the recipient's address directly via Pingen. This feature automatically adds a new page in front of the document. This allows the address to be re-entered in compliance with the address requirements and placed on the cover page accordingly.

The following requirements are checked by Pingen since October 1st 2023:

Incorrect street and house line

The house number must be placed after the street name. Pingen checks the order of the street name and house number as well as interfering elements within the address line.

Please make sure that the house number is after the street with a space in between and that there are no disturbing characters. So e.g. Musterstraße 1 or Musterstr. 1 (and not "1 Musterstraße" or "Musterstraße., 1" or "Musterstr.1" or "Musterstraße1" or "Musterstraße 1,").

Prohibited content after the house number

Supplementary notes (staircase C, backyard, flat 7) may only be placed after the house number if they are preceded by a double slash (//). Pingen checks whether content has been placed after the house number without the separation of the double slash and that this content is on the same address line.

Please make sure that there is no other information after the house number respectively that it is separated by "//". For example: Musterweg 1b or Musterweg 1b // Türe Rechts (and not "Musterweg 1b Türe Rechts" or "Musterweg 1b," or Musterweg 1b 1b) and that the contents after the "//" are on the same address line.

Prohibited content after the P.O. Box

If a P.O. Box is specified, it must be on a separate line and no other content may follow the P.O. Box number.

Please make sure that only the P.O. box number is written after the P.O. box. For example, Postfach 123 or Postfach 12 11 13 (and not "Postfach 123, Kst 12345" or "Postfach 12 11 13, 10557 Berlin").

Prohibited content in the postcode line

No other information may be placed in the address line of the postcode and the city. Country designations before the postcode such as DE- or D- are prohibited. Pingen checks whether there is any prohibited content before the postcode.

In addition, there must be no character (such as comma or hyphen) between the postal code and the city. Both information must be separated by a space. Pingen checks if there is a space after the postal code.

Please make sure that the line with the postcode only contains the postcode and the city and that they are separated by a space. For example, 10557 Berlin (and not "10557, Berlin" or "DE-10557 Berlin", or "10557 Berlin (Germany)" or "10557 Berlin (Brandenburg)").

Postcode does not have 5 digits

In Germany, postcodes that do not have 5 digits are considered invalid. If a recipient address has a postcode with fewer or more than 5 digits, it will be rejected by Pingen.

Please make sure that the postcode is a continuous 5-digit number. So e.g. 10557 Berlin (and not "1055 Berlin" or 10 557 Berlin").

Invalid Address Structure

When sending letters to Germany, it is mandatory to include a recipient name in the address. Furthermore, no empty lines (or lines without content) are allowed between the different address lines. In addition, the address line with the street name/house number or P.O. Box must be followed by the address line with the postcode/city. In addition, neither the address line with the street name/house number nor the address line with the postcode/city may be split over multiple address lines.

Please ensure that the address contains a recipient and no blank lines between the address lines, that the address line with the street name or P.O. box is followed by the address line with the postcode/city and that both the address line with the street name and the address line with the postcode/city are shortened so that they each fit on one address line.

Country designation on the last address line

Deutsche Post stipulates that it is mandatory to omit the country designation for letters from German senders to Germany. For this reason, Pingen checks Organisations with the default recipient country Germany whether the last address line contains the country name (e.g. "Germany" or "Deutschland").

Please make sure that the last line contains only the postcode and the city. For example, 10557 Berlin (and not "Germany" or "10557 Berlin, Germany").

Important:

For technical reasons, Pingen cannot carry out a complete verification of the requirements by Deutsche Post. The address check by Pingen serves solely to help identify various problems before sending the letter. However, it is the sender's responsibility to ensure that letters sent to Germany via Pingen comply with Deutsche Post regulations. Any additional expenses due to incorrect addressing will be charged by Pingen.

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Note: The illustrations in this article are not to scale.