I registered a new mailing address with the USPS. They said it’d take a few days to show up in their zip+4 database. It’s been over a week and still showing invalid address. I’ll be charged for my po box eventually for having registered a physical mailing address.
Anyone know how long it should be before the lookup on zip+4 shows it?
Thanks!
I am not sure what the question is.
By registering a “new mailing address”, you mean that the address did not exist previously (new construction)?
What does zip+4 have to do with this? Many (most?) zip+4 values do not equate to a single address anyway and the zip+4 is not necessary for mail delivery.
A lot of companies use the USPS database to determine if an address is deliverable. A home under construction, for example, or one that is currently vacant will have valid addresses, but will be marked as 'non deliverable. So mail sent to them could be returned to sender when it his the USPS system.
And, technically, there’s the additional part of the zip code that no one ever talks about, the delivery point. A full zip code actually has 12 numerals, zip (5), +4 (4), delivery point (2), and a check digit.
the 9 digit zip code is included in the 12 digit bar code.
I think this is it. There’s an official database that you can get that has all of the USPS recognized addresses. Several pieces of software that I’ve worked on will try to “validate” addresses entered by users against that database. If the address you mentioned isn’t in there, and can’t be reasonably matched to one that is in there, you get a big fat error message saying “unrecognized address” or something like that. After all, how do you know whether there is a 43545346236 New Sdaspdpmaspom-Uopmaposeipaw Street NE-by-ENE, Old East New Cecilstown Heights, Alaska 99999? Have you gone there to verify?
Address validators could do a decent job of putting addresses into the “standard” USPS form. So it could recognize e.g. “Parkersburg 44444” and recognize that officially, the part of Parkersburg that is in zip code 44444 is officially designated as East Parkersburg and make the address say “East Parkersburg 44444”.
I don’t work directly with it, but there is address software done where I work
We get info from the USPS monthly (also quarterly, but that is mostly for our customers who are not CASS certified)
Anyhow, the person I asked said it depends on the local postmaster and when they enter it into their database
There is also something called the Early Warning System db