USPS street addressing lets a PO Box customer use the street address of the Post Office building where the box is located, followed by a hash sign and the box number, as an alternative to writing “PO Box.” USPS gives the example of a Post Office at 500 Main Street with PO Box 59: with street addressing, mail may be addressed to “500 Main Street #59”. Both forms reach the same box. So a company whose website shows a street address while its letter shows a PO Box is often not contradicting itself, and there is a free way to check which situation you are looking at.
That check is at the bottom of this page. First, why the option exists at all, because the reason explains most of the confusion.
Why USPS created a street version of a box address
A PO Box address is unusable for a large part of modern commerce. Private carriers deliver to street addresses, not to Post Office boxes, so a customer with only a box address cannot receive from UPS, FedEx, DHL or Amazon. Plenty of online forms reject the string “PO Box” outright.
Street addressing solves that. USPS describes the option as enabling customers to order online and receive package deliveries from private carriers that require a street address. In Premium PO Box Service locations that offer it, the customer’s mailing address may be either the street address for the Post Office where the box is located followed by # and the box number, or PO Box followed by the box number.
Two practical limits are worth knowing:
- It is not offered everywhere. Street addressing is subject to availability and restrictions, and is tied to participating Post Office locations rather than being a universal feature of every box.
- It is not available to every box type. USPS states it is not available for Caller Service, Reserve Number, or Group E Box customers.
What this looks like on your mail
| What you see | What it usually means |
|---|---|
| “PO Box 59, Springfield IL 62701” | A standard box address |
| “500 Main Street #59, Springfield IL 62701” where 500 Main Street is a Post Office | The same box, written in street-addressing form |
| A street address on the website, a PO Box on the letter | Commonly the same location. Sometimes an office address plus a separate mail box |
| “500 Main Street, Suite 59” where the building is a retail store | Not USPS. This is a private mailbox at a mail center |
That last row is the one people misread most. A hash sign or a suite number at a retail address points to a commercial mail receiving agency rather than a Post Office, which is a different arrangement with different rules. The difference is set out in PMB vs PO Box.
The free check: is that street address a Post Office?
This is the part missing from almost everything written on the subject, and it takes about a minute.
- Look at the format. A street address ending in a hash sign and a number, especially a number that matches a box number you have seen for the same company, is the street-addressing signature.
- Look the street address up in the USPS Post Office Locator on usps.com. If the address is a Post Office facility, the locator will show it as one, with its own hours and services.
- Search the street address as an exact phrase, without the company name. If a Post Office comes back rather than the company, you have your answer.
- Compare the box number to the number after the hash sign. When they match, both addresses point at one box.
- If the street address is a real commercial building, then the company has an office and a separate box, which is ordinary and not a warning sign.
The outcome you want from this is a plain statement you can rely on: either “these are two ways of writing the same box” or “these are two different places, one of which is an office.” Both are normal. Neither is, by itself, evidence about whether the mail is trustworthy, and this site does not treat an address format as a verdict on a letter.
Why this trips up a sender search
Street addressing quietly breaks the usual identification method, and it is worth knowing before you conclude that a search has failed.
If you search the street address printed on a letter and the results are all about a Post Office, that is not a dead end and it is not a sign that someone is hiding. It means the sender is a box holder using the street form. Switch the search back to the box number, which is the string the company’s own documents will carry, and use the query patterns in search queries that actually identify a PO Box sender.
The reverse also happens. A company that publishes only its street-addressed form on its website will not appear when you search “PO Box 59” plus its name, even though the box is the same. Searching the number alone, in quotation marks, with the city and state, catches both forms.
Reading the rest of the address block properly narrows this further, and each line is broken down in how to read a business return address. A “Dept” line above the box is a separate thing again, covered in what “Dept” means on a PO Box address.
What street addressing does not tell you
It does not tell you who holds the box. Using the street form does not put anything extra into a public record, and USPS does not disclose boxholder information to the public regardless of which address format the customer uses.
It does not mean the company has an office at that address. The building belongs to USPS. Reading a street-addressed line as “their headquarters” is a common and confident mistake.
And it does not make an address more or less legitimate. It is a delivery option chosen for practical reasons, most often so packages can arrive.
This is for identifying a business, not a person
This page is written for a reader trying to reconcile two addresses for an organization that contacted them: a bill, a notice, an invoice, a letter from a company whose website says something different.
It is not a method for locating an individual. If you are trying to find someone’s home address, trace a person who has moved away from you, or reach someone who has chosen not to be reachable, none of this applies and this site will not help with it. In the United States, using postal records, address formats or lookup services to find or approach a person who does not wish to be contacted can be harassment or stalking, and that is a criminal matter in every state rather than a gray area. Street addressing in particular is often chosen by people who want a mailing address that is not their home, which is exactly the privacy it is there to protect. If mail is arriving that you want stopped, the channel is the US Postal Inspection Service.
Jurisdiction
Street addressing is a United States Postal Service product, defined by USPS policy and offered at participating US Post Offices. It has no equivalent under most other national postal operators, and nothing on this page describes how box addressing works outside the US.
FAQ
What is PO Box street addressing?
It is a USPS option letting a box holder use the street address of the Post Office where the box is located, followed by # and the box number, instead of writing “PO Box.” Both forms deliver to the same box.
How do I write a street-addressed PO Box?
USPS gives the example of a Post Office at 500 Main Street and PO Box 59, which may be addressed as “500 Main Street #59”. The hash sign and the box number are both required parts of the format.
Can I get UPS or FedEx deliveries at a PO Box with street addressing?
That is the main reason the option exists. USPS describes it as enabling customers to receive package deliveries from private carriers such as UPS, FedEx, DHL and Amazon, which require a street address. Availability and restrictions apply.
Is street addressing available at every Post Office?
No. It is offered at participating Premium PO Box Service locations and is subject to availability, and USPS states it is not available for Caller Service, Reserve Number or Group E Box customers.
A company shows a street address online but mailed me from a PO Box. Is that suspicious?
Usually not. It is very often the same box written two ways, and even where it is two genuinely different addresses, an office plus a mail box is ordinary. Check whether the street address is a Post Office before drawing any conclusion, and see how to find out who owns a PO Box for the full identification sequence.
Sources: USPS PostalPro, Premium PO Box Service Street Addressing · USPS, Rent a PO Box · US Postal Inspection Service
Last verified at the time of writing, with a 6-month review interval. Our sourcing standard is in the Editorial Policy; the limits of this information are in the Disclaimer. Nothing here is legal advice.
