PO Box vs. Street Address

The Postal Corporation of Canada makes regular deliveries to PO Boxes and street addresses all around the country. From a financial aspect, Canada Post actually prefers delivering to PO Boxes over normal street addresses. 

As you can very well guess, it costs less for Canada Post to make a delivery to a PO Box than to your home or street address because every letter goes through the post office, and there is no need for transporting the letters to the street address if it is addressed to a PO Box.

All the Canada Post people have to do is deposit the postal mail in the PO Boxes, which is the same place where all the letters, including the ones addressed to the same PO Box, are sorted. So it is the same equivalence of us putting something in our home from one place to another.

The popularity of post office boxes is because they address many limitations of conventional mailboxes, such as security and privacy. Here, we will explain how PO Boxes work, why people decide to rent them, and how the PO BOX address differs from the street address.

This article is about the difference between delivering postal mail to PO Boxes vs. Street Addresses. We also discuss how you can get Canada Post to deliver your postal mail to the physical address and not your PO Box address. 

Similarly, we also discuss how you have your postal mail delivered to your PO Box address instead of your home address. Finally, we’ll also take you through how you can make UPS and FedEx deliver to your PO Box address as well.

You may opt for a PO box address even if you have a street address to keep your physical address confidential. However, you cannot use your PO box address as your street address. It is because the post office box does not fulfill the requirements of a Street or Physical address.

In other words, the PO box address has no apartment or house number on it. Also, street address denotes the place you reside in, and a PO box address does not state that.

Another massive difference is the PO box address format. Well, yes! Street and PO box addresses differ a lot when talking about their writing formats. Let us see how:

PO box address example:

JOHN SMITH

PO BOX 1234 STN A 

TORONTO ON M5W 1E6

Street address example:

JOHN SMITH 123 MAIN ST APT 4 

VANCOUVER BC V6A 1B2

 Also Read: What Is Address Line 2

You can register for a PO box address in a few easy steps to avail of it in a few days. This section covers all the information to connect with the Post Office and rent a PO box at your convenience. 

Renting a PO Box

Your PO box location is critical to your business objectives. For example, imagine your office falls a few miles outside the city. 

You may need a valid address in a customer-dense locality—to showcase your availability and help people trust your brand more. 

Hence, pay attention to the location before you fill out a form and sign up for a Canada Post PO box. The second aspect to consider is which organization is best to rent a PO box from because some companies want to explore more choices other than the Post Office. 

To make these decisions faster, answer the following questions:

• What is my budget to rent a business mailbox?
• Does the PO box offer a 24 x 7 pickup service?
• What type of mail items does my company receive?
• On what days can I pick up my mailpieces?
• Which benefits can I avail of with a PO box?

These answers can help you remain upfront regarding your requirements and choose an appropriate PO box address!

Get a Postal Box rental agreement online or at a nearby Post Office. Fill out whether you need it for six or 12 months. 

This form helps Canada Post verify your identity and note your preferences to allocate an appropriate PO box to your firm. Please carry two government-issued IDs, one of which must have your photograph.

Choose an Ideal PO Box Size

Business mailboxes are excellent for securely receiving and managing mail items in one place. But you must consider several factors to ensure they fulfill your purpose, like the PO box size.

Consider how often your business address receives mailers and their sizes. Please note the Post Office carrier only drops off small-sized items such as letters and small packages to a PO box. They return the large parcels to the postal outlet because of space constraints. 

Some firms look for small mailboxes to cut expenses. But larger PO boxes are your best option to store legal documents safely and receive large-sized mailers. 

Select small PO boxes only if you receive bills or letters to avoid potential problems and extra legwork of collecting items from the Post Office. 

PO Box Rental Prices

The Canada Post PO box rates differ from city to city. You may also notice broad differences in the rental prices in rural and urban areas. 

For example, you can rent a PO box in a rural place for $63 for 3 months. But Canada Post charges around $81 for the same service in an urban locality. 

Your lease length is critical to determining your PO box prices. The Post Office suggests you rent mailboxes for extended periods, say one or two years, to get bulk discounts and save money!

 Also Read: How To Write An Address International

Canada Post makes it easy and quick to find rental prices online. But it can be puzzling because they require you to consider several factors. 

Luckily, the Canada Post website offers a listing that gives you an idea of how much you must pay monthly and annually. 

This listing lets you access a map to look up specific PO box types and sizes based on your preferred postal code. 

If there is any confusion, please call your local Post Office or drop by during working hours to get an accurate quote. 

What to Do After Renting a PO Box?

Once you get a PO box, please register this new address as your permanent mailing address. Access the Canada Post National Change of Address (NCOA) Program to request the Post Office to update your delivery address accordingly. 

You may submit a request online by singing to your Canada Post business profile or visiting the Post Office in person. Please complete the online forms to help Canada Post learn your PO box number and other details and upgrade their system data. 

Please enter the PO box number in the new address section in the street address field. The Post Office takes a few weeks to make the changes, so expect to receive your mailers at your old address for at least one week. 

You may track your request on the Canada Post website at any time once you submit your request. It is best to contact your local postal outlet if you continue getting mailers at your old address even after 14 working days!

Can I Use My Street and PO Box Addresses Simultaneously?

Yes! Canada Post allows individuals and businesses to use PO and street addresses simultaneously. 

It benefits you because this feature lets you differentiate between crucial and non-crucial mailpieces. 

For example, you can provide your PO box address on your website to receive mail from everyone. But you may use your street address to correspond with high-ticket clients, business partners, and other stakeholders. 

 Also Read: Why Is My Address Not Valid

When we speak of PO box vs. street address, many ask about the difference between delivery and physical addresses. 

Can your PO box address be your physical address?

Does Canada Post allow you to rent a PO box when you already have a valid mailing address?

Delivery addresses differ from your physical business location. Your office might be in Toronto, but you may receive your mail items at another address in Brampton. 

Physical addresses are the same as your street addresses—regular locations where a company operates. However, a mailing address can be a street or PO box address!

Imagine you run a clothing store that hundreds of customers visit daily. Do you want to receive crucial documents and other mail items at this location? Or do you prefer redirecting your mailers to a secure place?

Hence, many businesses have separate physical (street) and mailing (street or PO box) addresses—to maintain privacy and efficiency. 

PostGrid’s address verification API enables you to autocomplete, standardize, and validate all mailing and physical address lists. You may send your transactional and marketing mailers nationally and globally without worrying about mail returns.

 Also Read: Fuzzy Address Searching

Have you ever wondered what happens to the postal mail that we sent where we put both the address of their PO Box and street address? 

Since we have already mentioned that Canada Post actually prefers delivering to PO Boxes, it is hardly surprising that your posts will get delivered to the PO Box if someone has put both your home address and the PO Box address on the envelope sent to you.

What do you do if you only mean adding the PO Box address as a backup address? So if you do have a preference as to where you want your postal mail sent, you must put that preferred address on the first line and then write the secondary or backup on the second line. You can even write “backup” so that there is no confusion about where to deliver the letter.

Now, at least some of you who are reading this are wondering whether it is really all it takes. Is it enough to simply write the physical address on the first line for it to be treated as the primary address? Well, the answer is yes. 

The proper formatting is all you need because the Addressing Guidelines document by Canada Post says so. Thus, if the address has validated data in both the first line and second line and you have managed to list the physical address first, then you can be pretty much sure that your postal mail is delivered to the physical address and not the PO Box address.

Now, let’s consider the same mail, except you want your mail to be sent to a PO Box address instead of a physical address. All you have to do is swap those address lines and have your PO Box address written on the first line. 

Like the last case, we still have both two valid addresses, and by listing the PO Box address, you are informing Canada Post that your priority is to have the letter delivered to the PO Box address.

Writing Both PO Box and Street Address in the First Address Line

We have already made it clear that Canada Post prefers to deliver letters directly to the PO Boxes rather than physical addresses.

We have also discussed how we can ensure that the letter is delivered either to the PO Box or street address by writing the primary destination as the first line of the address on the envelope. 

This begs the question, what happens if we write both the PO Box and street address on the first line? You can write the first address line using both PO Box and street address using one of the following two formats.

What happens now is that such letters that don’t particularly follow a standard format for writing the address are subjected to a Canada Post standardization process. During this process, the address is converted to a standardized Candian address to accomplish easy and fast delivery of postal mail. The standardized address will look something like the following:

PO Box 456

Station A 

Toronto, ON M5W 1E

As you can see here also, the preference is given to sending mail to PO Box address over the physical address. From this, we can assume that the default process is to have the letter sent to the PO Box address. Therefore, if you need the letter you sent to reach the addressee at his/her physical address, you must write the same on the first address line. 

The best practice to adopt is to always write the primary address on the first line and the backup one on the second line so there is no confusion.

Writing an Invalid & Valid Address in Different Address Lines

For a letter to be sent via Canada Post, the address must first be validated to be real, and this will be done regardless of whether you’ve addressed the mail to a PO Box address or a street address. Let us take the example of the same address we used above but with a slight change. Consider the following two addresses.

As you can see, the two addresses above are the same, except that the first two address lines have been swapped. Now, let’s say that Main Street is a nonexistent address or, in other words, an invalid address as far as Canada Post is concerned. So what happens if you use the wrong or invalid address? This is where things might be a little different than you might think. At least, some of you reading would have assumed that both addresses are undeliverable since they contain an invalid address line.

But that would be a wrong assumption in this case. Here, the first address has a valid PO Box address in the first line, and hence it will be delivered to the same. In the case of the first address, Canada Post will consider the second address line as “extra information.” As per Canada Post, this extra information will help the delivery person. Therefore, additional information is not needed for the system that routes and processes the said mail.

Now let’s consider the case of the second address, which has an invalid first address line. In this case, the mail address is immediately classified as invalid and, therefore, undeliverable. This further underlines the importance of address standardization and validation, especially if yours is a company that sends out regular postal mail. Since postal mails are much more expensive than digital outreach programs using emails or text messages, companies could end up losing a significant amount of money if they keep sending posts to invalid addresses.

The smart way would be to avoid invalid addresses altogether. To do that, you’d need an advanced address verification tool like PostGrid. With a tool like PostGrid, you can easily filter out invalid addresses from your database using a simple CSV file. 

Furthermore, PostGrid is SERP-certified, which means the address validation is carried out using Canada Post’s official address database. By filtering out the undeliverable addresses, you can be sure that every mail sent from your company reaches its destination.

Writing an Invalid & Valid Address in the Same Address Line

Taking the same address as an example, once again, let’s assume we write the address on the envelope, combining the first and second address lines. The first address line will then look something like “PO Box 456 123 Main Street” or “123 Main Street PO Box 456”. 

In this case, the Canada Post system will first standardize the address as it normally does. Since the PO Box address is a valid one, the system detects this, brings it up front, and assigns it as address line 1.

The invalid part of the address “123 Main Street,” which was initially on address line 1, is pushed down to address line 2 by the Canada Post address standardization system. 

The Canadian Post system includes the invalid part of the address in the second line despite knowing it is invalid. Why? Because as we have mentioned earlier, the system treats it as “extra information.” However, something that seems irrelevant to the system could still be necessary for the delivery person.

The Canada Post address lookup system does not disregard the invalid address because the information could be important. Although the system’s working makes sense, it is by no means perfect. A better address verification system like PostGrid would be able to detect minor typos and self-correct the address to provide you with an accurate and complete deliverable address.

As some of you may already be aware, private delivery companies like UPS and FedEx do not ship to PO Box addresses. They have a strict “delivery only to physical street address” rule, which stands in the way of PO Box owners receiving mail from UPS or FedEx in their PO boxes. 

However, there is a simple solution to this problem. All you need to do to have UPS or FedEx deliver direct mail to a PO Box address is to use a different format while writing the address for that post. This format is called a PO Box Street Address, and you can use it to send packages through any retailers and shipping companies to a PO Box address.

PO Box Street Address

The PO Box Street Address or PBSA is, in essence, the PO Box number combined with that particular post office’s street address. For example, suppose you want to send a mail to PO Box number 456 of a post office located at “Station A Toronto ON M5W 1E6”. In this case, the PBSA will look like this:

Station A #456

Toronto ON M5W 1E6

A PBSA address pushed through an advanced address verification tool such as PostGrid will provide you with a standardized form of the PBSA. One notable difference in the standardized PBSA is that instead of saying “#,” it would say “unit,” for example, “Station A Unit 456”.

As long as you have PBSA, you can deliver the mail to a PO Box regardless of whether you have a Street Addressed mail or a PO Box Addressed mail. Another point worth noticing about posts sent to PO Boxes is that if the mail sent to a PO Box is a large item, it is safely stored in the back room of the post office, and a slip is put on your PO Box to inform you about the same.

PBSA: Things to Note

Now that we know to send a letter to PO Box using PBSA, there are a few other things you should be informed about when using PBSA. For example, if your business uses a PBSA address and later closes your PO Box, you are bound to submit a change-of-address form for the PO Box format and PBSA format. 

Furthermore, you should also make sure that both these forms have the same forwarding address.

In case you want to look up a PBSA address, you can submit the same to our advanced address verification API and request additional details. PostGrid will then furnish you with all the necessary details, including a “Box ID” field that you can use to ascertain whether the address you have is a PO Box or PBSA one.

Do you need a Street Address For PO Box?

If you are wondering how you can use a PO box as an address? Or how to get a PO Box without a street address?

Then, you will be happy to know that Canada Post allows people to opt for a PO box without a physical or street address. People without a street address can have their mail held at a PO box.

It is possible to use a PO box address without a street address if you want to get mail at an address other than your primary address. You can also continue using a PO box address if you live in a PO box-only area.

Also, PO Box alternatives that do not involve Canada Post can also allow you to get a mailbox if you do not have a valid street address to back it up. Ultimately, you will be able to set up your mailbox based on the organization you choose.

Apart from this, you can send countless mail pieces to PO BOX and Street addresses by automating a direct mail campaign with PostGrid. Remember, we are not just limited to automating direct mail but also help with bulk address verification. It ensures that you can execute your campaign in a better way with a list of valid and accurate addresses.

 Also Read: International Address Verification Services

Even though it is true that there are plenty of other benefits, below are a few of our favourite ones at PostGrid:

Direct Mail Security: Now, it is something we most commonly hear from our clients at PostGrid. Yes, they crave a sense of security for both Address Verification and Print & Mail API. It is because they hate sharing crucial information related to their customer with anyone else out there. And we think that it is the same with many people too- They hate disclosing their details to brands unnecessarily or like keeping them private.

Now, coming back to the topic!

Canada Post PO boxes and personal mailboxes are safely stowed within the post. Thus, you will not have any letters, invoices, or more left at your doorstep. Also, as mentioned above, you can access a PO Box using a code or, most, a key. Ultimately, this increases your mail security and lowers the chances of mail theft or being swiped away.

You have a Permanent Mailing Address: Do you move a lot? Do you spend most of your time traveling overseas, starting over in a foreign country? Whatever the reason is, with a PO Box Address, you can have a stable place for your loved ones and even companies to send you letters, parcels, and more.

Keeps Your Street Address Personal: It’s not a pleasant feeling to think that many businesses, customers, and even people know their street address while others wish to keep it private.

Similarly, you trust your instinct while mailing your customers, even when you do not know many of them and are not sure if your mail will reach them or not. With an address verification tool like PostGrid, you can respect the privacy demanded by your customer while keeping the wrong or invalid addresses at bay. However, it is only possible if your customer has a valid or registered PO Box address.

Faster Delivery: Canada Post has already established a PO box facility inside every post office. Thus, you’ll receive your packages and letters faster than your street or business address.

Conclusion

Whether the mail sent out from your company is addressed to a PO Box address or a street address, it is still subjected to an address validation by the carriers like Canada Post. If the validation shows that the PO Box address or street address is not valid, then the post is not forwarded to the delivery person. 

This means that your business could end up losing valuable resources and money by sending out postal mail to invalid addresses. Companies can easily avoid this unnecessary expense and wastage of resources by using an advanced address verification tool like PostGrid. 

You can efficiently validate both PO Box and street addresses using advanced tools like PostGrid. This can, in turn, optimize your process, and you can even use PosGrid to automate the entire mailing process for optimal results.