South Africa Postal Code Format Explained

A South African postal code is a four-digit number. It has no letters, spaces or hyphens, and it is written at the end of the address, after the suburb and city. The South African Post Office, the national postal operator, manages the code system, and the codes are also widely used by couriers and online shops.

Four digits, two kinds of code

The distinctive feature of the system is that a location may have two different codes:

• Street code: applies to physical street addresses in a suburb or area. Couriers deliver to these.
• Box code: applies to post office boxes and similar facilities at a post office or postal agency. Mail is collected there by the customer.

A town can therefore show one code for its street addresses and another for the PO Box service, and a large suburb or city can contain several street codes. Using the wrong kind of code is a typical source of misrouted mail and failed address validation.

What the digits mean

The digits are assigned to postal areas and in general, codes within the same region are numerically grouped, with the leading digits reflecting the broader area of the country. The numbering is not designed for users to decode by hand, and there is no formula to calculate a code from the suburb name. If you need a code, look it up; see how to find a South Africa postal code.

Examples of valid format

These are only examples of the shape:

• 2000
• 7700
• 0001
• 4001

Any four digits fit the format. Note that some codes start with zero, so a code should be stored as text. A zero dropped from a code leaves three digits, which is not valid.

Common mistakes

• Using a PO Box code with a street address, or a street code with a box number.
• Dropping the leading zero from codes such as 0181.
• Taking the code of a neighbouring suburb because the suburb names are similar.
• Writing the code on the same line as the street instead of with the suburb and city.
• Entering a five-digit value from another country.

Where an exact location fits

A postal code in South Africa indicates a postal area, not a property. For a specific gate, a unit inside a large estate or a home with no formal street number, a UPCS code can be added next to the address. It starts with ZA, as in ZA-XXXX-XXXX, identifies a 3 m by 3 m cell, and is not an official postal code or issued by the post office. The layout of the whole address is discussed in how to write a South African address. For the overview of the system, return to the South Africa guide.