Canadian Addressing Concepts

Canada Post Corporation (CPC) collects, processes, and delivers mail across the second-largest geographic area in the world (second only to the area covered by the former Soviet Union). To ensure that each piece of mail arrives at its destination promptly, CPC has developed address-labeling standards to facilitate mail processing and timely delivery.

The CPC requires that all mail items must contain the following address components for delivery of the mail piece:
  • Addressee
  • Delivery address
  • Community/municipality
  • Provinces
  • Postal code

Your mail is most efficiently processed when it follows the optimum address format, which uses symbols, capital letters, and no delimiters (such as commas or periods). The CPC addressing conventions include guidelines for format, punctuation, and address components.