Address Requirements La Poste (France)

Letters sent to France, once printed, are forwarded to La Poste (French post) for delivery. From this point onwards, further responsibility lies with La Poste. To ensure that your letters can be processed smoothly and for the agreed prices by La Poste, it is important that the recipient addresses comply with specific requirements.

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

In order to provide our customers with the best possible support in complying with these requirements, Pingen checks the recipient address for additional requirements for letters to France since March 1st 2025. Learn more about the address checks of Pingen

If there are problems processing the recipient's address, La Poste may reject the letter or only deliver it for a surcharge. In such cases, no reimbursement will be made as the correct addressing is the sender’s responsibility and the costs cover the additional processing effort. To ensure the address meets the postal address requirements, we recommend sending a test letter via Pingen and verifying successful delivery. In this way, potential problems can be recognised and rectified at an early stage to ensure smooth delivery.

Address requirements La Poste:

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: 110 mm from the left (x), 50 mm from the top (y)
• Address area size: 80 mm x 28 mm

Important: La Poste also stipulates a restricted area of 20 mm around the address area, in which no content (apart from the franking) may be located.

Address structure

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

• Salutation (optional)
• Additional recipient designations such as apartment number, floor, etc. (optional)
• Further recipient designations such as building entrance, industrial zone, etc. (optional)
• House number and street in this order. Additional information such as floor, apartment number or geographical information must be entered on the address lines above
• Delivery reference such as PO box (BP) or (POSTE RESTANTE, TSA, AUTORISATION POSTREPONSE) and, if applicable, followed by the name of the destination if this is not identical with the name CEDEX, ANCIENNE COMMUNE or LIEU DIT (optional)
• 5-digit postcode and city in capital letters on one line in this order. Additional information about the destination country (country code or ISO code) must be omitted.

Important: The address line with the postcode and the city must be written in capital letters. La Poste also recommends writing the address lines with the house number and street as well as the delivery reference in capital letters. Furthermore, punctuation (e.g. “.” “,” “-” etc.) is prohibited on the following address lines: House number and street; Delivery reference; Postcode and city. Instead, any information must be separated using spaces.

Usually accepted by La Poste:

Usually not accepted by La Poste:

Fonts

La Poste defines specific information regarding font formatting:

Font Size (height of verse)

• Minimum: 1.8 mm
• Maximum: 5.0 mm
• Recommended font size: 9 pt to 12 pt in "regular" (normal) font style

Character spacing

End of a character to the beginning of the next character:

• Minimum: 0.3 mm
• Maximum: 2.0 mm

Word spacing

The space between blocks of digits and words:

• Minimum: 1.0 mm
• Maximum: 2.0 mm
• Usually one space

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: 1.0 mm
• Maximum: 2.5 mm

Font & colour

For the recipient's address to be properly read, a clear font with one of the following fonts is recommended:

• OCR A (9-12pt)
• OCR B (9-12pt)
• BATANG (9-12pt)
• COURIER (9-12pt)
• COURIER NEW (9-12pt)
• LETTER GOTHIC (9-12pt)
• LUCIDA CONSOLE (9-12pt)
• VERDANA (9-12pt)
• MONOSPACE (9-12pt)
• HELVETICA (9-12pt)
• ARIAL (9-12pt)
• GOTHIC GT2F(12pt)
• LIPAP (12pt)
• LUCIDA SANS UNICODE (12pt)

In addition, the following aspects must be adhered to for the font used:

• Uniform font
• Font colour: Black
• No italics or decorative fonts
• No serif fonts
• No negative or bold fonts
• No fonts with connected letters
• No 3D or shaded fonts

Usually not accepted by La Poste:

Further details on the design:

La Poste specifies further requirements for address design:

• The address must be left-aligned
• At least 3, maximum 6 lines with a maximum of 38 characters (including spaces)
• No lines, underlining or framing in the address
• No blank lines between the address lines
• From the line with the house number and the street onwards, punctuation (e.g. “.” “,” “-” etc.) must be omitted
• Write the last line with the zip code and city in capital letters
• Keep 20 mm clear outside the address area

Usually not accepted by La Poste:

Detailed documentation of the requirements by La Poste can be found here.

Address verification by Pingen (since March 1st 2025)

To help you meet the requirements of La Poste, Pingen checks the recipient address for compliance with additional requirements since March 1st 2025 for letters to France.

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 March 1st 2025:

Prohibited content on the postcode line

In the address line with the postcode and the city, the postcode must appear before the city. In addition, there must be no characters (such as a comma or hyphen) between the postcode and the city. Both pieces of information must be separated by a space. Pingen checks whether the order is correct and whether there is a space after the postcode.

In addition, country designations before the postcode such as FR- or FR should be avoided, as these are no longer accepted by the Post.

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, 75000 PARIS (and not “75000, PARIS” or “75000  PARIS” or “FR 75000 PARIS” or “PARIS 75000”).

Postcode does not have 5 digits

In France, postcodes that are not 5-digit are considered invalid. If a recipient address has a postcode with fewer or more than 5 digits, it will be rejected by Pingen. Pingen checks whether the last or second-last address line contains a 5-digit postcode.

Please make sure that the postcode is a continuous 5-digit number. So e.g. 75000 PARIS (and not "7500 PARIS" or “75 000 PARIS" or “75’000 PARIS”).

Unsupported ISO country code

The spelling FR-75000 PARIS (i.e. ISO2 country code before the postcode) has not been supported by La Poste for several years. For this reason, Pingen checks whether there is an ISO2 country code (such as “FR-“) on the line with the postcode.

Please ensure that the country name is stated on the last address line and that the address line with the postcode does not have a country designation. For example, 75000 PARIS (and not “FR-75000 PARIS”).

City not in capital letters

In France, the city must be written in capital letters. If the city in the recipient address is not written in capital letters, it will be rejected by Pingen. Pingen checks whether the city on the line with the zip code is written entirely in capital letters.

Please ensure that the city is written entirely in capital letters. For example, 75000 PARIS (and not “75000 Paris” or “75000 paris” or “09100 Saint MICHEL”).

Country designation on the last address line

La Poste specifies that the country should be the sole content of the last address line. For this reason, Pingen checks whether there is a country designation (such as “France” or “Switzerland”) on the line with the zip code.

Please ensure that the country name is on the last address line and that the address line with the postcode does not have a country name. For example, 75000 PARIS (and not “75000 PARIS, FRANCE” or “75000 PARIS (FRANCE)” or “3000 Bern, Switzerland”).

Important:

For technical reasons, Pingen cannot carry out a complete verification of the requirements by La Poste. 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 France via Pingen comply with La Poste regulations. Any additional expenses due to incorrect addressing will be charged by Pingen.

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