Spanish Address Format: How to Write a Spanish Address Correctly

What is the correct Spanish address format? A Spanish address is written recipient-first, with the street type and name, then the building number, then the floor and door, and the five-digit postal code placed before the town on the last line — for example: Luis Martínez García / C/ Gran Vía, 22, 4º B / 28013 MADRID. The province is added in brackets for small towns but is optional for big cities. If you are sending from the United States, add SPAIN as the final line so USPS and UPS route the parcel to the right country.

What Is the Correct Format for a Spanish Address?

A correctly formatted Spanish address stacks one element per line, running from the individual down to the postal district and up to the province. Following Correos, the Spanish postal operator, the canonical structure is:

• Addressee’s name (given name then surnames — Spaniards usually carry two surnames)
• Company or department name (business mail only)
• Street type + street name, then the building number — e.g. C/ Gran Vía, 22
• Floor and door, separated from the number by a comma — e.g. 4º B or 2º Izq
• POSTAL CODE then TOWN on one line — e.g. 28013 MADRID
• Province in brackets, for small towns only — e.g. (Segovia)

The word calle (street) is almost always shortened to C/, and other street types appear as Avenida (Avda.), Plaza (Pl.), Paseo (Pº) or Carretera (Ctra.). When a US shipper prepares a label through a platform like ParcelPath’s Spain 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 Spanish Address?

Each line does a specific job in the delivery chain. The two lines US senders most often get wrong are the number-then-floor detail and the code-before-town order.

Line	What it is	Example	Required?
Recipient	Person or business receiving the item (name + two surnames)	Luis Martínez García	Yes
Street line	Street type + name, then building number	C/ Gran Vía, 22	Yes
Floor / door	Floor (º) and door letter or Izq/Dcha	4º B	If an apartment
Postal code	Five-digit código postal, first two = province	28013	Yes
Town	Delivery town, on the same line after the code	MADRID	Yes
Province	Province name in brackets, small towns only	(Segovia)	Only if needed
Country	Destination country for international mail	SPAIN	Yes (from abroad)

The single biggest surprise for people used to US addressing is that the postal code comes before the town, on the same line. Correos treats that code-then-town line as the routing key, and because the first two digits already encode the province, a big city like Madrid or Barcelona does not need a separate province line at all.

How Does the Spanish Postal Code System Work?

The código postal is the part that does the heavy lifting, and it has a strict internal grammar. Every Spanish postal code is exactly five digits, and each digit narrows the destination:

• First two digits — the province, numbered 01 (Álava) through 52 (Melilla), covering Spain’s 50 provinces plus the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla. So 28xxx is always Madrid and 08xxx is always Barcelona.
• Third digit — the major city or delivery route within that province; a 0 here typically marks the provincial capital.
• Fourth and fifth digits — the specific delivery area, district, or rural route.

Because the code is province-first, it is self-checking. If the town says “Sevilla” but the code starts with 28, something is wrong — 41xxx is Seville. A worked example: 28013 MADRID resolves to central Madrid near the Gran Vía, while 40001 SEGOVIA (Segovia) shows the small-town pattern where the province is spelled out in brackets. Spain is written in the Latin alphabet, so no transliteration is needed, but keep Spanish accents (á, é, í, ó, ú, ñ) where they belong — A Coruña and Cádiz are correct spellings, though carriers will still route if an accent is dropped.

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

Shipping into Spain 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 — SPAIN. 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 Spanish shipments:

• Keep the postal code before the town. Write 28013 MADRID, never “Madrid 28013” — the reversed US order confuses automated sorting.
• Include floor and door for apartments. A missing 4º B can strand a parcel in a large building; the concierge (portero) sorts by floor and door.
• Add the province in brackets for small towns. For villages that share a name, the province line speeds sorting; for Madrid or Barcelona it is unnecessary.
• Both USPS and UPS reach every Spanish postal code. ParcelPath issues discounted USPS and UPS labels for the Spain lane; the Spain destination guide covers current transit windows and customs paperwork.

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

What Are the Most Common Spanish Address Mistakes to Avoid?

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

• Putting the postal code after the town (“Madrid 28013”). Spain writes the code first; the US-style reversal is the number-one avoidable mis-sort.
• Dropping the floor and door. In apartment blocks the 4º B detail is what gets the parcel to the right unit — without it, delivery may fail.
• Confusing the two surnames. Spaniards use two surnames; splitting or dropping one can make the recipient hard to identify at a concierge desk or pickup point.
• Writing the wrong street type. C/ (calle), Avda. (avenida) and Pº (paseo) are distinct roads that may share a name — use the right one.
• Forgetting “SPAIN” on mail sent from abroad. Without the country line, a US carrier can’t route the parcel internationally.
• Adding a province to a big city. “Madrid (Madrid)” is redundant; the province line is only for small towns.

How Do You Handle the Canary Islands, Ceuta, Melilla and Accents?

A few Spain-specific cases trip up international senders:

• The Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla use the same five-digit code format (Ceuta is 51xxx, Melilla 52xxx, Las Palmas 35xxx, Santa Cruz de Tenerife 38xxx). They are, however, outside the EU VAT and customs union, so parcels there clear customs separately even though the address format is identical — still use “SPAIN” as the country line.
• Regional-language place names are official: Girona (Catalan) and A Coruña (Galician) are the correct forms, not the older Castilian “Gerona” or “La Coruña”. Use whatever the recipient gives you.
• Accents and ñ should be preserved where possible, but the carrier’s Latin-script systems will still deliver if a diacritic is dropped — the postal code carries the real routing weight.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

Before. Spain writes the five-digit código postal first, then the town on the same line — for example 28013 MADRID. This is the reverse of the US ZIP-after-city order, and getting it right is the single most important formatting rule for parcels to Spain.

What do “4º B” and “2º Izq” mean in a Spanish address?

They describe the floor and the door. The number with º is the floor (4º = fourth floor), and the letter or word after it is the specific door: a letter such as B, or Izq (izquierda, left) and Dcha (derecha, right). Apartment mail needs this detail to reach the right unit.

Do I need to include the province when shipping to Spain?

Only for small towns. Because the first two digits of the postal code already identify the province, big cities like Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Seville do not need a province line. For villages that may share a name with others, add the province in brackets — for example 40001 SEGOVIA (Segovia).

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

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

Is the address format the same for the Canary Islands and Ceuta?

Yes, the written format is identical — five-digit code before the town, then “SPAIN”. The difference is fiscal, not postal: the Canaries, Ceuta and Melilla sit outside the EU VAT/customs union, so parcels there clear customs separately even though you address them exactly like mainland Spain.

Sources

• Correos — Spanish national postal operator
• Universal Postal Union — Spain addressing (S42) template
• Postal codes in Spain — structure and province numbering

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