Address checks

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Every new order’s delivery address is checked when it arrives, before any automation rule runs. The check tidies what is safe to tidy, suggests what it cannot be sure of, and tells you when an address needs a look.

It never changes the order itself. The order keeps the address your store sent; the check only decides which address the label is bought with, and you can always go back to the original.

What gets checked

Destination	What is checked
France, and the French overseas departments that use French postcodes	The postcode against the official postcode list, the city against the postcode, and the street and house number against the national address base
United Kingdom	The postcode’s format, and that the postcode exists. Northern Ireland postcodes (starting BT) are checked for format only
United States and Puerto Rico	The street address, through UPS, when UPS ships the order
Everywhere else	The country’s postcode format, the fields the country requires and, where it has them, its states or provinces

Everywhere, the check also compares each field with what the chosen carrier accepts (a line too long for the carrier is moved or flagged), and looks at the phone number.

The statuses

Each order on “Orders” shows its status beside the destination country.

“Valid”: nothing to fix, or only spaces or the way the phone number is written tidied. A “Valid” address can still carry a suggestion worth a look.
“Corrected”: a safe fix was applied, such as the spacing of a postcode or a line moved to fit the carrier. The label uses the fixed address.
“Needs review”: something is wrong, and there is a suggestion to fix it.
“Invalid”: something is wrong, and there is no suggestion.
“Not checked”: the check could not run (see below). Nothing is held because of it.
“Confirmed”: you decided. You accepted a suggestion or kept the original. Editing the address is not a decision on its own: the edited address is checked again and gets its own status.

“Outdated” means the check was made before the address or your address check settings changed. The order is checked again before a rule buys its label, or straight away when you press “Check again”.

What is fixed automatically, and what is only suggested

With “Fix formatting automatically” on, these are applied on their own:

spaces, and the capitals and spacing of a postcode (sw1a2aa becomes SW1A 2AA)
a missing leading zero on a French postcode, when the city confirms it
a state or province written as its standard code
an obvious misspelling of a French city, when the postcode has one close match only
an address line too long for the carrier: the end of line 1 moves to the start of line 2, at a space
a French city name longer than the carrier accepts, written in its official, shorter postal form

Phone numbers are also shown in international format, but only when nothing in them would be lost. The label keeps the phone number exactly as the order has it.

Only suggested, never applied until you accept it: any change to the digits of a postcode, a city that is a different place, and anything that comes from UPS. A French city name that is itself a real commune is never respelled into another one: “Saint-Éloi” typed with the postcode of Saint-Lô stays “Saint-Éloi”, and the mismatch is reported instead.

Never done: no text is ever deleted or cut. Door codes, “digicode”, floor numbers and delivery notes stay exactly as typed. The street name, the country, the recipient and the company are never changed beyond their spaces. The order’s own address is never overwritten: “Keep the original” ships it exactly as imported, automatic fixes included, and “Undo” takes back a decision you made.

Reviewing an address

Press an order’s status on “Orders”, or “Review address” in its details, to open “Review address”. The status can be pressed when there is something to review: an address that needs review, is invalid, was corrected or is outdated, a suggestion, or a decision you can take back. “Valid” and “Not checked” with nothing to suggest are plain text. The dialog says in plain words what the check found, and compares the order’s address with the suggested one field by field. Each changed field is marked “Applied automatically”, “Accepted by you” or “Suggestion”, according to the address the label uses now, which a line below the table names.

“Accept suggestion”: the label uses the suggested address.
“Keep the original”: the label uses the order’s address exactly as it is. It is not offered when that address is missing something every label needs, such as the street or the postcode: edit it instead.
“Edit address”: changes the address itself, in the dialog (see below). It is the main button when the address holds an automatic label and there is no suggestion to accept.
“Undo”: takes back either decision. Until the address is checked again, the label uses the order’s own address.
“Check again”: checks the address again now, for example after the customer corrected it in your store.

A decision belongs to that version of the address. If the address changes afterwards, in your store or by an edit, it is checked again and the old decision no longer applies. Once an order has a label, its address can no longer be changed here.

Editing the address

“Edit address” in “Review address”, or “Edit” in an order’s “Shipping details”, opens “Edit the delivery address”. The form opens with what the last check found, marks the fields it names, follows the destination country’s way of writing an address, checks each field as you type, and runs the address check on what you typed before you save. See Orders for the form itself.

Saving checks the new address again at once, for the carrier the label would use:

It passes: its status is the check’s own (“Valid” or “Corrected”), and a label rule waiting for it buys the label, once.
It still needs review or is invalid: the order stays held. The form stays open with what the check found; fix it further, or press “Use this address anyway”, which keeps the edited address exactly as it is (the same as “Keep the original” for the new address) and releases the label.

An address can no longer be edited once the order has a label, nor while a label is being bought for it.

In an order’s details, “Address check” shows the status, how far the check could go and what it found. A “Label address” block appears when the label does not use the order’s own address.

Automatic labels

With “Hold automatic labels when an address needs review” on, which is the default, a label rule does not buy for an order whose address is “Needs review” or “Invalid”. The order says why on “Orders”, as “Auto-label skipped”.

The check made on import is for the carrier the order has then, usually your default one. When a carrier rule or “Choose the carrier by price or speed” gives the order another carrier, the address is checked again for that carrier just before the label is bought, and that check decides: an address too long for the carrier picked is held even if it suited the default one, and an address the default carrier could not take is labelled when the carrier picked can. The order still shows what the carrier choice picked while it waits for the review. Once the review lets the label go, the carrier is chosen again; if no carrier gives a usable price then, the label is bought on your shipping settings, or on the carrier a rule above the choice sets, never on the earlier pick.

There is nothing to retry afterwards. The label is bought on its own as soon as you accept the suggestion or keep the original, or once the address is corrected, here or in your store, and the new address checks out. An edit that still fails keeps the label waiting, until it is fixed or used anyway. While a rule waits, “Review address” says so, naming only what it offers: accepting, keeping or saving an edit that passes buys the label straight away, and the order’s page catches up a few seconds later. For an invalid address with nothing to accept or keep, it says to fix it with “Edit address”. Until the label is bought, the dialog does not say which address a label uses, since none is bought yet; once your decision or edit released it, the dialog says the label is being bought and offers nothing more that would change the address. This works for orders imported in the last 14 days, the same window as the wait for payment; create the label of an older order by hand. If address checks are switched off for the whole service, the orders they held are released within a few minutes.

Labels you create yourself are never blocked. Above the “Create label” button, a warning says the address needs review; the button still works, and buys with the address as it is now. Only an address missing something every label needs, such as the street or the postcode, keeps the button disabled, as it always has, and the warning then says so. A suggestion you did not accept is never applied behind your back. Bulk runs are not blocked either: the dialog of “Create & print” says how many of the orders to buy need a review, before you confirm.

Rules

The “Address status” condition lets a rule act on the status: valid, corrected, needs_review, invalid, unchecked or confirmed. A typical use is a “Don’t create the label automatically” rule for addresses that are needs_review or invalid. See Automation rules.

Conditions on the address status are read when the order is imported, before that import’s carrier rules and carrier choice run, so they see the check made for the carrier the order had then. To have labels bought once you fix an address, use the hold setting or a “Don’t create the label automatically” rule, not a condition on the label rule.

Settings

In “Settings”, under “Shipping”, the “Address checks” section holds the card of the same name. It was the last card of Shipping Defaults until September 2026, and “Sender & packages” no longer shows it.

“Check addresses”: check the address of every new order. Switched off, labels use each order’s address exactly as imported, including orders where you had accepted a suggestion.
“Fix formatting automatically”: the safe fixes above. Switched off, they become suggestions.
“Hold automatic labels when an address needs review”: the hold above.
“Use free online address services”: the street checks in France and the postcode checks in the UK. Switched off, only the checks that need no network run.
“Treat a street that cannot be found as needing review”: off by default, because small places and new streets are often missing from the address bases.

“Save address checks” saves the card on its own, apart from the rest of the page. Changing “Fix formatting automatically”, “Use free online address services” or “Treat a street that cannot be found as needing review” marks orders already checked “Outdated” until they are checked again. The other two switches take effect at once.

When a check cannot run

The online services can be slow, busy or down. When one does not answer in time, the order keeps what the offline checks found, or is “Not checked”, and nothing is held because of it: labels are still bought. The same goes for a check that fails for any other reason. A check never stops an import.

What is sent where

France: the first address line, the postcode and the city, to IGN’s Géoplateforme, which serves the national address base. Orders imported together are sent together.
United Kingdom: the postcode only, to postcodes.io. Northern Ireland postcodes are never sent.
United States and Puerto Rico: the address lines, city, state and ZIP code, without the recipient’s name, to UPS, and only when UPS ships the order.

Names, phone numbers and email addresses are never sent to an address service, and neither is the second address line in France, so door codes stay private.

Data sources and credits

“Address data”, at the bottom of the settings card, shows the postal data in use, its edition and the licence it was loaded under.

French postcodes: Codes postaux from the Base Adresse Nationale (codes-postaux 4.1.2, October 2024), built from INSEE’s Code Officiel Géographique and DGFiP’s FIMOCT. Licence Ouverte 2.0. The list is refreshed from La Poste’s official file, the Base officielle des codes postaux (Licence Ouverte 2.0), when a new edition is published.
French streets: Street checks in France use the Base Adresse Nationale through IGN’s Géoplateforme geocoder, Licence Ouverte 2.0. The address index is updated every week.
UK postcodes: UK postcode checks use postcodes.io. Contains Ordnance Survey data © Crown copyright and database right 2025. Contains Royal Mail data © Royal Mail copyright and database right 2025. Contains National Statistics data © Crown copyright and database right 2025. Contains NRS data © Crown copyright and database right 2025. Northern Ireland postcodes are checked for format only.
Address formats: Address formats from Google’s libaddressinput data (CC BY 4.0), through the google-i18n-address library.