French Address Format: How to Write a French Address Correctly

What is the correct French address format? A French address is written recipient-first, with the 5-digit code postal placed directly before the city name on the same line, and the city name conventionally written in ALL CAPITALS — for example: M. Julien Marchand / 15 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine / 75011 PARIS. If you are sending from the United States, add FRANCE as the final line, in English capitals, so USPS and UPS route the parcel to the right country.

What Is the Correct Format for a French Address?

A correctly formatted French address is stacked one element per line, working from the individual up to the postal district. The Universal Postal Union’s country template for France and La Poste’s own addressing guidance agree on this canonical structure:

• Recipient’s name (civility such as M./Mme where known)
• Company or department name (business mail only)
• Additional delivery detail — building (Bâtiment), residence, staircase (Escalier), or floor (Étage), when needed
• House number and street name, in that order, with no comma between them
• 5-digit code postal, immediately followed by the CITY NAME in capital letters, on the same line

The whole block is left-aligned in clear type, and La Poste recommends the postal-code-and-city line be written entirely in capitals so its optical sorting equipment reads it without ambiguity. When a US shipper prepares a label through a platform like ParcelPath’s France shipping page, that same order applies, with one addition covered below: the destination country on the final line.

What Are the Essential Components of a French Address?

Each line does a specific job in the delivery chain. Getting the postal-code-and-city line right — code first, city in capitals, both on one line — matters more than any other single detail.

Line	What it is	Example	Required?
Recipient	Person or business receiving the item	M. Julien Marchand	Yes
Delivery detail	Apartment, floor (Étage), staircase (Escalier), or building, only if needed	Bât. B, Esc. 2, App. 14	Only if needed
Street line	House number + street name, no comma	15 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine	Yes
Postal code + city	5-digit code postal directly before the city, both in CAPITALS, one line	75011 PARIS	Yes
Cedex code	Business/high-volume mail routing suffix, where assigned	CEDEX 11	Only for Cedex recipients
Country	Destination country for international mail	FRANCE	Yes (from abroad)

The detail that trips up most US senders is the order on that second-to-last line: French addressing puts the postal code first, then the city — the reverse of the US “City, State ZIP” convention — and both belong on a single line, not split across two.

How Does the French Postal Code (Code Postal) System Work?

The code postal is the single most important line to get right, and it has a strict internal grammar. Every French postal code is exactly five digits, and per the UPU’s France addressing template and Wikipedia’s summary of the French postal-code system, it is placed before the city name, on the same line — never after, never on its own line above or below the city:

• Position: code postal, then a single space, then the city name — e.g. 75001 PARIS, 69002 LYON, 13008 MARSEILLE. This is the opposite order from a US “City, ST ZIP” line, and it is the single most common formatting error US senders make.
• City name in capitals: the commune name is conventionally written in ALL CAPS on this line — the same “capitals for the machine-read line” convention that applies to the recipient’s postal code.
• Département digits: the first two digits of the five-digit code identify the département — 75 is Paris, 13 is Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille), 69 is Rhône (Lyon), 06 is Alpes-Maritimes (Nice). Département numbers were assigned roughly alphabetically between 1860 and 1870, so later renamings and splits mean the list is no longer in strict alphabetical order today.
• Last three digits: in most communes these identify a local delivery office, with 000 generally reserved for the département’s préfecture (e.g. 13000 is Marseille’s central code). Paris, Lyon and Marseille are the exceptions: their last two digits denote the municipal arrondissement instead — 75008 is the 8th arrondissement of Paris, 69001 is the 1st arrondissement of Lyon.
• House number, then street name: unlike some European formats, French street lines run number-then-name with no comma — 15 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine, not “15, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine” or “Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine 15.”
• Cedex mail: high-volume recipients — companies, government offices, some PO boxes — are assigned a Cedex code instead of a standard street-level postal code. Cedex stands for Courrier d’Entreprise à Distribution Exceptionnelle (“business mail with special distribution”), and in cities with multiple sorting centers or in Paris, Lyon and Marseille, the word Cedex is followed by a one- or two-digit number, e.g. 13567 MARSEILLE CEDEX 02. Never mix a Cedex code with a standard street address on the same label.

How Do You Address a French Parcel From the United States?

Shipping into France from the US adds exactly one rule to everything above: the last line of the address must be the destination country, written in English capitals — FRANCE. USPS and UPS sort outbound international parcels by that country line first, before the postal code is ever read, so omitting it is the fastest way to have a package held or returned.

Practical points for US-origin French shipments:

• Keep the postal code and city on one line, both in capitals, immediately above the country line — 75011 PARIS above FRANCE, not split apart.
• Accented characters (é, è, ç, à) are correct French, but for international labels going through a US carrier’s system, plain unaccented capitals are the safer bet — many scanning systems drop or mangle diacritics, and the address still reads correctly without them since it’s already Roman-alphabet.
• Include a working phone number and email in the label’s contact fields — French customs and last-mile couriers use them for duty contact and delivery notifications.
• Both USPS and UPS reach mainland France and its overseas departments. ParcelPath issues discounted USPS and UPS labels for the French lane; the France destination guide covers current transit windows and customs paperwork. ParcelPath ships exclusively via USPS and UPS — La Poste, France’s own national postal operator, handles final delivery on the French end but is not a carrier ParcelPath books labels through directly.

For the customs side of a French parcel — the CN22/CN23 declaration, commodity codes, and EU import rules — see our international shipping hub, which walks through the documentation that keeps a parcel out of a customs hold.

What Are the Most Common French Address Mistakes to Avoid?

Almost every delayed or misrouted French delivery traces back to one of a short list of formatting errors:

• Reversing the postal-code-and-city order. Writing “PARIS 75011” instead of “75011 PARIS” breaks the line French sorting equipment expects.
• Splitting the postal code and city onto two separate lines. They belong together on one line, code first.
• Lowercasing the postal-code-and-city line. La Poste’s own guidance calls for capitals here for reliable automated reading.
• Adding a comma between the house number and street name. French convention is “15 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine,” not “15, Rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine.”
• Forgetting “FRANCE” on mail sent from abroad. Without the country line, a US carrier can’t route the parcel internationally.
• Treating a Cedex code as an ordinary postal code. Cedex mail routes through a different sorting path — don’t combine a Cedex line with a standard street address, and never guess a Cedex number if one wasn’t supplied.

How Do You Handle Apartments, Cedex Mail, and Overseas Departments?

A few France-specific cases trip up international senders:

• Apartments, staircases and floors. French multi-unit buildings are commonly organized by escalier (staircase) and étage (floor) rather than a single unit number. La Poste’s official abbreviation list uses App. for apartment, Esc. for escalier, Bât. for building, and Ét. for étage — this detail goes on its own line, above the house-number-and-street line, e.g. Bât. B, Esc. 2, 3e étage.
• Cedex codes for businesses. As covered above, high-volume business and government recipients get a Cedex code in place of, not in addition to, a normal delivery-point postal code. If a French business supplies you a Cedex address, copy it exactly — it is not interchangeable with the standard postal code for that city.
• Overseas departments and territories (the former “DOM-TOM”). Guadeloupe (971), Martinique (972), Guyane (973), Réunion (974), and other French overseas departments and collectivities use their own three-digit postal-code prefixes in the 971–988 range, but they are legally, administratively and postally part of France — not separate countries. A US-origin parcel to Guadeloupe or Réunion still ends with “FRANCE” as the country line, using the local 971xx/974xx postal code above it, e.g. 97110 POINTE-A-PITRE. This is the opposite situation from UK Crown Dependencies, which do get their own country line.
• Accented and special characters. Street and city names frequently carry accents (Étage, Éguilles, Château) and hyphens (Saint-Antoine). Keep them for domestic-French correspondence; for a US-origin international label, unaccented capitals are the more carrier-safe choice, since the Latin letters underneath are unchanged and still legible either way.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does the postal code go before or after the city name in a French address?

Before. A French code postal always precedes the city name on the same line — 75011 PARIS, not “PARIS 75011” or the code and city on separate lines. This is the reverse of the US “City, State ZIP” order and the single most common mistake American senders make.

What do the first two digits of a French postal code mean?

They identify the département. 75 is Paris, 13 is Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille), 69 is Rhône (Lyon). The numbering was assigned roughly alphabetically between 1860 and 1870, so it’s no longer in perfect alphabetical order today after later département renamings and splits.

Do I add “France” when shipping from the US?

Yes — always, as the last line in English capitals: FRANCE. USPS and UPS sort outbound parcels by the destination country first. Without it, the parcel can be held domestically or returned before it ever leaves the US.

What is a Cedex code, and do I need one?

Cedex (Courrier d’Entreprise à Distribution Exceptionnelle) is a special postal-routing code assigned to high-volume business and government recipients in place of a standard street-level postal code. You only use one if the recipient supplied it — never invent a Cedex number, and never combine it with an ordinary postal code on the same label.

Are French overseas departments like Guadeloupe or Réunion addressed as their own country?

No. Guadeloupe, Martinique, Guyane, Réunion and France’s other overseas departments use their own postal-code prefixes (in the 971–988 range) but remain part of France for postal, customs and legal purposes. A parcel from the US still ends with “FRANCE” as the country line, with the local overseas postal code above it.

Sources

• La Poste — Postal address abbreviations and addressing guidance
• Universal Postal Union — France: Postcode type and position
• Universal Postal Union — Postal Addressing Systems Manual
• Postal codes in France — structure and format

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Part of our Shipping to France guide. Related: International Shipping hub · UK Address Format.