A street number is the number that identifies a building on its street, the 32 in 32 Vassar Street, and in a US address it is the primary address number that opens the delivery line. An online order needs the complete address, of which the street number is one part, and because house numbering systems differ from country to country, a foreign store’s form may expect the number before the street, after it or in a field of its own. The number can carry a fraction, a hyphen or a letter, USPS, Canada Post and Royal Mail each give it a different name, the local addressing authority assigns it, and mail for a property without one goes by rural route, PO box or building name instead.
What's a Street Number and What's an Address
A street number identifies a building along one street, while an address adds every element a postal service needs to deliver there, from the unit to the city, the postal code and, for international mail, the country written in full on the address’s last line.
What is a street number?
A street number is the building’s number along its street, which USPS calls the primary address number and the 9-1-1 address standard the Address Number, the integer that locates a site along a thoroughfare. Most business and residential addresses, by the federal address standard’s count, are numbered thoroughfare addresses, built from a complete address number and a complete street name.
A street number can carry a fraction, as in 123 1/2 MAIN ST, or a hyphen, as in 112-10 BRONX RD, the form common in New York City, Hawaii and parts of southern California, where the hyphenated number names one site and not a range. In Royal Mail’s address file, numbers with a letter or a range, such as 1A, 12A and 110-114, are held as a building name instead of a building number, and Reigate and Banstead Borough Council’s numbering policy gives new premises built on an existing street with no number free a letter suffix, such as 12A. In grid cities where many streets are numbered, the street can itself be a number, and USPS reads 842 E 1700 S in Salt Lake City as the street number 842 on a street named 1700.
What does street number mean in an address?
In an address, the street number means the number of the building on its street. The United States, Canada, the UK, India and France write it before the street name, Germany and Indonesia after it, and in Canada a unit number can stand in front of it, joined by a hyphen. The Universal Postal Union’s S42 standard keeps a single list of address elements for every member country, and each country’s S42 template arranges those elements in its own order.
| Country | Name for the number | Position | Example street line | Postcode |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Primary address number | Before the street | 123 1/2 MAIN ST | ZIP Code, 5 digits or ZIP+4 |
| Canada | Civic number | Before the street, a unit first with a hyphen | 10-123 1/2 MAIN STREET NW | Postal code |
| United Kingdom | Building number | Before the thoroughfare | 27 John Street | Postcode |
| India | House no., building or flat no. | Before the street | 4, Amrita Shergill Road | PIN code, 6 digits |
| Indonesia | Nomor bangunan, written No. | After the street | Jl. Ciburial Indah No. 47 | Postcode, 5 digits after the locality |
| Germany | House number | After the street | Wacholderweg 52a | Postcode, 5 digits before the locality |
| France | House number | Before the street | 25 RUE DES FLEURS | Postcode, 5 digits before the locality |
Where the street number sits, and the postcode that follows, in seven countries.
Street number examples
Seven street number examples show the number in its usual forms and places: on a Salt Lake City grid street, hyphenated in New York City, as a fraction, behind a unit number in Canada, with a letter suffix after a German street name, after No. in Indonesia and as a premise number ahead of the road in Bangalore.
- 842 E 1700 S, Salt Lake City, where 842 is the street number and 1700 the street name between two directionals.
- 112-10 BRONX RD, New York City, a hyphenated street number for one site.
- 123 1/2 MAIN ST, a fractional street number.
- 10-123 1/2 MAIN STREET NW, Canada, unit 10 at civic number 123 1/2.
- Wacholderweg 52a, Germany, the number and its letter after the street.
- Jl. Ciburial Indah No. 47, Indonesia, number 47 after No.
- 32/1, 2nd Main Road, Bangalore, India, the premise number before the road.
What is an address?
An address is the set of details that lets a postal service deliver to a place, and USPS counts one as complete when it carries every element needed to match its ZIP+4 and City State files. A US address runs from the addressee to the delivery line, with the primary address number, any predirectional, the street name, its suffix, any postdirectional and the unit, and then to a last line of city, two-letter state and ZIP+4 Code. Apartments, offices and suites add a secondary unit designator, most commonly APT, BLDG, FL, STE, UNIT, RM or DEPT, which USPS prefers to the # sign.
The postal code narrows delivery to an area. The five digits of the US ZIP Code, dating from 1963, name a broad area, a region and a post office, and ZIP+4, from 1983, sorts mail down to a specific street. An Indian PIN code covers around 170 square kilometers on average. In the UK the post town is mandatory, a routing instruction to the delivery office, the county is no longer required where the post town and postcode are given, and the postcode mixes letters and digits, as in RH6 0HP, an address’s postcode in the post town of Horley, where the US ZIP Code and the Indian PIN code are written in digits.
Is the street number the same as the house number?
Yes, the street number is the same as the house number, the number of a building on its street, and the number in an address is called the primary address number by USPS, the civic number by Canada Post and the building number by Royal Mail.
| Body | Its name for the street number | Country |
|---|---|---|
| USPS, Publication 28 | Primary address number | United States |
| NENA, the 9-1-1 address standard | Address Number | United States |
| FGDC federal address standard | Complete Address Number | United States |
| Canada Post | Civic number | Canada |
| Royal Mail, address file | Building number | United Kingdom |
| UIDAI, Aadhaar form | House no. / Building / Flat no. | India |
| Indonesian regional law | Nomor bangunan | Indonesia |
| Universal Postal Union, US sheet | Street number | International |
Street number vs street name vs street address
The difference between a street number and a street name is that one identifies the building and the other the thoroughfare it stands on, while the street address includes both, plus any unit, as the address’s delivery line. The federal address standard builds a numbered thoroughfare address from a complete address number and a complete street name, and treats an address missing its number as either incomplete or an unnumbered thoroughfare address. Its thoroughfares include walkways, railroads and rivers as well as roads.
What is a civic number?
A civic number is Canada Post’s name for the street number, written before the street name, with a letter suffix placed directly after it and a fraction after one space. A unit number can go before the civic number with a hyphen, after the street with a unit designator, or on a line of its own before the street line.
What goes in "Street Number and Name" and Address Line 2?
Street Number and Name takes the street number and the street name together on one line, and Address Line 2 takes the rest of the street address, such as an apartment, a suite or a room. USCIS Form AR-11 labels its field Street Number and Name and gives the apartment, suite or floor separate boxes, and the HTML standard’s autofill list carries the number inside address-line1, as in 32 Vassar Street, with no token of its own for a house number, while a line such as MIT Room 32-G524 belongs in address-line2. On the mailpiece, USPS prefers the unit at the end of the delivery line, written with its designator such as APT or STE, and moves it to its own line immediately before the delivery line only when the line is too long.
| Form label | What to write | Rule it follows |
|---|---|---|
| Street number, house number | The number of the building on its street | USPS primary address number |
| Street name | The street's name with its type and any direction | USPS street name, suffix and directionals |
| Street Number and Name, Address Line 1 | Number and street on one line | USCIS Form AR-11, HTML address-line1 |
| Address Line 2, Apt, Ste, Flr | The apartment, suite, floor or room | USPS unit designators, HTML address-line2 |
| City, Post Town | The delivery locality, in the UK the post town | USPS last line, Royal Mail |
| State, Province | The two-letter state in the US | USPS last line |
| ZIP Code, Postal code, PIN code | The country's postal code | USPS, Canada Post, India Post |
| India, House no. to PIN code | Only PIN code and Post Office are mandatory | UIDAI Aadhaar form |
Street Number Kya Hota Hai? Indian Address Forms
The answer to street number kya hota hai, स्ट्रीट नंबर क्या होता है in Hindi, and to street number ka matlab, is that the meaning of street number in an Indian address is the house number, मकान नं., which UIDAI’s Aadhaar form asks for in place of a street number field; in some Delhi addresses it is instead the number of the street itself. The Aadhaar form splits the address into मकान नं. / भवन / अपार्टमेंट, house no., building or flat no., then सड़क, street, भूमि-चिन्ह, landmark, वार्ड नंबर, ward no., क्षेत्र / इलाका / सेक्टर, area or locality, गांव/नगर/शहर, village, town or city, डाकघर, post office, and पिन कोड, PIN code, and only the post office and the PIN code are mandatory.
Urban Indian addresses typically carry a house number, street name, locality and city, while rural ones are often descriptive, built from landmarks and nearby references. City addresses take forms such as 4, Amrita Shergill Road and 32/1, 2nd Main Road, a rural address can run village, post office, tehsil, district and state with no number at all, and house or plot numbers are written many ways, 2/1, 2-1 or No 2, 1st part. A form that asks for a street number wants the house, flat or plot number, and in a Delhi address such as R.Z. 48/6, Street No. 6, Tughlakabad Ext., New Delhi, the Street No. is the number of the street itself and goes with the street name. An address without a house number carries its place in the landmark and area fields.
What is a PIN code and DIGIPIN?
A PIN code is India’s six-digit postal code, introduced in 1972 for sorting mail, and DIGIPIN is the Department of Posts’ 10-character code for a grid square of about 4 by 4 meters, derived from latitude and longitude, with lookup portals launched on May 27, 2025. PO on an Indian form is the post office, डाकघर, which the Aadhaar form makes mandatory, and a PIN code can change when a new post office opens.
Street Number Artinya? Indonesian Addresses
Street number artinya nomor bangunan, the building number, in Indonesian regional law, and an Indonesian address writes it after the street name with No., as in Jl. Ciburial Indah No. 47. Arti street number dalam alamat jalan itu adalah nomor bangunan yang ditulis setelah nama jalan, dengan singkatan No. di depan angkanya. Jl. stands for Jalan, street, the five-digit postcode follows the locality, as in BANDUNG 40198, and RT numbers such as RT 01/001 are neighborhood units added after the house number. Wakatobi Regency’s 2013 regulation numbers buildings in sequence from a fixed point, odd on the left of the road and even on the right, and gives a building behind or beside another the front building’s number with A, B or C.
How are street numbers assigned?
Street numbers are assigned by the local addressing authority, the building official in Seattle and the 911 addressing office in Haywood County, North Carolina, each under the numbering system its jurisdiction sets. Seattle’s 2021 building code allots 100 numbers to each block, one whole number per 20 feet of frontage, with even numbers on the north and east sides, while Haywood County numbers by distance at 1,000 numbers per mile with even numbers on the right, a system that replaced its route-and-box addresses. One side of a street generally, but not always, carries one parity.
House numbering spread in eighteenth-century Europe as a tool that gave the state access to each house, to tax, recruit or lodge soldiers. In the United States, a Philadelphia directory of 1785 numbered the houses in sequence along one side of a street and then back down the other, and Clement Biddle’s directory of 1791 put odd numbers on the north and east sides of each street and even numbers on the south and west. John Mascher’s ordinance of 1856 introduced the decimal Philadelphia System, a hundred to each block, so that 220 Chestnut sat between Second and Third Streets, a method New Orleans and many other places adopted. Free city delivery, begun on July 1, 1863, came only to cities that named and lit their streets and assigned numbers to houses, and the ZIP Code later made house numbers a requirement in places that still lacked them.
Seattle’s 2021 building code requires address numbers visible from the street, in Arabic numerals or letters contrasting with their background, each at least 4 inches, 102 mm, high, with a monument, pole or sign where access is by a private road and the address cannot be seen from the public way.
What if a property has no street number?
Mail for a property with no street number is addressed in the form its postal service sets for that case. In the United States that is RR ## BOX ## on a rural route, PO BOX ## or GENERAL DELIVERY, and in Canada RR, PO BOX or GD; in the UK a building name such as Rose Cottage stands in for the number, and rural India writes village, post office and tehsil. The federal address standard calls RR, PO BOX and GENERAL DELIVERY postal delivery addresses, points of delivery with no definite relation to where the recipient is, and a street name with no number in front of it an unnumbered thoroughfare address.
Online forms built for numbered streets can refuse such an address: Google Maps has answered a correction to a house in England that has only a name with “It looks like you haven’t entered a street number.” A business whose address has no street number can pin its location on the map in Google Business Profile, and add nearby cross-streets or landmarks where the official address is not accurate.
Why do you need both?
You need both because the street number finds the building and the rest of the address finds the street, the town and the delivery office. The ZIP+4 Code sorts mail down to a specific street, and the UK post town routes it to the delivery office that sorts it. Where a form has no field for a unit, the unit goes at the end of the street line with its designator, where USPS prefers it, or on its own line immediately before only when the street line is too long, and an Indian address without a number carries its landmark and locality in their own fields.
How do I find my street number?
Anyone who needs to find or know their street number can read it on the building’s address sign, which shows the number the local addressing authority assigned, or check it with a county address service, such as Skagit County, Washington’s, which lets residents verify an address and search the county’s address database. USPS’s ZIP Code Lookup works the other way round: it needs the street address already in hand and returns its ZIP Code.
What does street no. mean?
Street no. means street number, the abbreviation No. standing for number, as in an Indonesian address’s No. 47, and in Delhi addresses Street No. can also be the number of the street, as in Street No. 6, Tughlakabad Ext., New Delhi. A Canadian address avoids both No and the # sign, and a US rural route address leaves out NO. altogether.
