What Is a Mailing Address? Examples

The short answer

A mailing address is the address where you receive mail: your name, a delivery line, and the city, state, and ZIP Code USPS uses to bring mail to you. For most people it is the same as their physical address, the street address where they live or work. It differs when your mail goes somewhere else, such as a PO Box, a private mailbox at a mail-receiving business, General Delivery at a Post Office, or a rural route box.

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What is a mailing address?

USPS calls the address on a piece of mail the delivery address: it “specifies the location to which the USPS is to deliver a mailpiece.” Your mailing address is simply the delivery address other people should use to reach you. The Domestic Mail Manual lists the elements it needs, in this order from the top line:

The recipient’s name, or another identification such as a company name.
A private mailbox number (PMB or #) if the address is at a commercial mail receiving agency.
The street number and name with any apartment or suite number, or instead a PO Box number, GENERAL DELIVERY, or a rural route or highway contract route and box number.
The city and state, then the ZIP Code. A ZIP+4 is the most precise form.

USPS Domestic Mail Manual 602, Addressing

Mailing address vs physical address

A physical address is the street address of the place itself: your home, office, or storefront. It answers “where is it?” A mailing address answers “where should mail go?” When a carrier delivers mail to your door, the two are the same.

They differ whenever mail goes to a box or a third party instead of the building. Forms that ask for both usually want the physical address to locate you and the mailing address to write to you.

Common US address types and how USPS formats them (placeholder examples)
Address type	Example delivery line	Is it where you are?
Street address (residential or business)	123 MAIN ST APT 4	Yes
Post Office Box	PO BOX 1234	No: a locked box inside a Post Office
Private mailbox at a CMRA (mail-receiving business)	10 MAIN ST PMB 234	No: the business’s address plus your box number
General Delivery	GENERAL DELIVERY	No: mail held at one Post Office for pickup
Rural route	RR 2 BOX 152	Not necessarily: a box on a carrier’s rural route

When your mailing address isn’t where you live

PO Box: you rent a locked box at a Post Office and pick mail up there. Only USPS may deliver to an address written as PO BOX, so packages from UPS, FedEx, DHL, or Amazon need a street address. At some Post Offices, USPS offers Street Addressing, which gives the box a street-style address for those carriers, subject to availability.

Private mailbox: a commercial mail receiving agency (CMRA) is a private business that accepts mail for customers and holds or forwards it. Customers complete PS Form 1583 and show a primary and a secondary form of ID, and mail must carry PMB or # and the box number. USPS prohibits writing PO BOX for these addresses.

General Delivery is meant mainly as a temporary option for people without a permanent address, or for customers who want a PO Box when none is available. A college or company mailroom is another case: the Domestic Mail Manual notes that PO Box is used incorrectly in front of a private box number such as a college mailroom’s, so ask the mailroom for its exact format.

What is the difference between a mailing address and a delivery address?

For a letter, there is no real difference. Delivery address is USPS’s term for the recipient address printed on the mailpiece, and when someone mails you a letter, the delivery address is your mailing address.

The distinction matters for packages and online orders. A store’s delivery or shipping address field is where a parcel will be dropped off, possibly by a private carrier that can’t deliver to a PO Box, so a physical address is usually the safer choice there. Your mailing address is where you want letters, bills, and notices to go.

What is the correct format for a mailing address?

USPS Publication 28 prefers uppercase letters and a uniform left margin, with the recipient on the first line, the delivery line next, and the city, two-letter state abbreviation, and ZIP Code on the last line. Neat lowercase is acceptable as long as machines can read it. The full envelope layout, return address placement, and examples are in our addressing guide.

JANE DOE
123 MAIN ST APT 4
ANYTOWN NY 12345-6789

Address line 2, PO Boxes, and “in care of”

Address line 2 on online forms is for the secondary unit: APT, STE, UNIT, BLDG, FL, RM, or DEPT and its number. Publication 28 prefers that information at the end of the delivery line, and if it doesn’t fit, on the line directly above it. If you use the # sign, leave a space between # and the number.

Where to put a PO Box in an address online? Put PO BOX and the number in address line 1 and leave line 2 blank unless the form tells you otherwise. If an address shows both a street and a box, Publication 28 says the intended delivery address goes on the line directly above the city, state, and ZIP Code, and the ZIP Code must be the one for that address.

What does in care of mean? It routes mail to you through someone else’s address. The IRS, for example, tells taxpayers who get mail through an accountant or attorney to write “C/O” followed by that third party’s name and address. Our c/o guide shows where the line goes.

What is my mailing address?

If a carrier delivers to your home or office, your mailing address is that street address written the USPS way. The USPS ZIP Code Lookup finds the ZIP Code for a street address when you enter the street, city, and state, which helps you confirm the last line. USPS notes that a lookup result doesn’t confirm that a particular person or company is at the address.

If you rent a PO Box, use the box address exactly as your Post Office assigned it, including its ZIP Code. At a private mailbox store, campus, or company mailroom, ask the staff for the exact format they expect, since your box number has to appear in a specific place.

When a form needs a physical address, not a PO Box

Some forms ask for both addresses and won’t accept a box in the physical one. Read the instructions on each form, because the rules differ:

IRS Form SS-4 (EIN application): lines 4a–4b take the mailing address, and lines 5a–5b take the entity’s street address if different, with the instruction “Don’t enter a P.O. box number here.”
National Mail Voter Registration Form: Box 2 is your home (legal) address, with no PO Box or rural route without a box number, and Box 3 is where you get mail if different.
IRS Form 8822 (change of address): enter a PO Box instead of a street address only if your post office doesn’t deliver mail to your street address.

What IRIS needs to mail your letter or postcard

IRIS needs two addresses for every letter or postcard: a sender name and return address, and a recipient name and address, both in the US. Each address has a Name or company field, a Street address field, an optional Apt, suite, unit field, a City, a two-letter State, and a five-digit ZIP Code or ZIP+4. A PO Box goes in the Street address field. You review the document, both addresses, options, and the total before paying.

IRIS prints and mails letters and postcards by USPS First-Class Mail. A one-page black-and-white letter costs $3.20, and postcards start at $3.49 with postage included. IRIS doesn’t rent PO Boxes, receive or scan inbound mail, or mail to addresses outside the US.

Sources & further reading

Product details checked against the IRIS API contract when this article was published. Platform references can change; consult the linked documentation when implementing.

Published by IRIS Postal Forms, operated by Great Lakes Computing Office LLC. Send a correction.

Put it into practice

Mail a letter to any US address

Upload a finished PDF, type the sender and recipient addresses into labeled fields, and review everything before paying. IRIS prints the letter and mails it by USPS First-Class Mail.

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