Canada post address accuracy requirements

To avoid unnecessary delays in delivery of your mail items, follow these addressing guidelines:

• Print the address in uppercase, but we also accept lower-case fonts.
• Print the postal code in uppercase with the first three characters separated from the last three by one space. Don’t use hyphens.
• The municipality, the province or territory, and the postal code should all appear on the same line. This line should be the last line in a domestic address block. There should be one space between the municipality and the province or territory, and two spaces between the province or territory and the postal code. If this line in the address block becomes too long, you may place the postal code on the last line by itself.

Please note:

• Avoid using “Canada” in domestic addresses.
• The last line in international addresses should only have a Canada Post recognized country name in English or French.
• Don’t underline characters in the address block.
• Don’t use punctuation unless it’s part of a proper name, such as in “ST. JOHN’S”.
• You may use accents. We don’t consider them to be punctuation.
• Never use the # symbol or the French equivalent as part of the address.
• Format all lines of an address with a uniform left margin. All lines should be less than 40 characters per line, excluding spaces. You can’t truncate addressing lines.
• The space between address lines should be at least 0.5 mm, but not more than one blank line.
• Characters should be:
  • Well-defined
  • Between 2 mm and 5 mm in height
  • Printed in the same font
  • Don’t print it in a larger font
  • Clearly separate the return address from the destination address