How do I determine if a suite or apartment number is valid?

Question

If someone enters an invalid apartment, will that be reflected in the returned data? For instance, if a building has apartments labeled A-K and someone enters an address with "apt #5," will your system indicate that something is wrong?

Answer

First, a little background on how and when the USPS stores apartment information. Think of an apartment building like a business. You have the lobby, and then you have additional internal addresses (the apartments). The building, including the lobby, doesn't change, but the apartments will certainly change tenants, and even two apartments might be combined to make one larger apartment. 

That's all well and good, but how does the USPS handle that?

Because their goal is to deliver mail as quickly as possible without errors, they want to keep a list of as many internal addresses as possible. However, it’s up to the building owners to submit any changes to the internal addresses. 

For the most part, the USPS knows what apartments exist within an apartment building. They even track which ones are vacant and when their vacant status changes. The system does work pretty well. However, it isn’t a perfect system, and there are many variables to consider. The final choice is up to the building owner. Sometimes building owners make changes without informing the USPS.

To check an address now, you can try entering it into our system.

Example: The top floor of an apartment building burns down, and they decide to clean it up but not to rebuild it. It may take months (or even years) before they remember to inform the USPS that those apartments no longer exist.

Some apartments operate more like a nice hotel, meaning that all mail is received at the lobby. Thus, they don't submit apartment number information to the USPS. Certainly, their tenants will provide the apartment number as their mailing address, but all mail will be delivered to the lobby. In cases like that, the USPS treats that building as a single address. It'll be listed in the database as a "high-rise" but won’t have internal address data.

So, most high-rises (and other such buildings) do submit their internal address data to the USPS, but as you can see, there are alternate cases.

The best way to see exactly what our output will be for a given case is to try it on our website.

There are three fields (all related) that you'll want to look at to determine the internal address status: dpv_match_code, dpv_footnotes, and footnotes.

Examples:

If you enter an address with a valid apartment number, you get this:

• dpv_match_code = Y (Confirmed; entire address was DPV confirmed deliverable.)
• dpv_footnotes = AABB (ZIP+4 matched; city/state/zip + Street are all valid. Confirmed entire address; address is valid)

(A dpv_match_code of "Y" means that the address is valid, including the apartment/suite information. A dpv_footnote of "AABB" means that the address, as entered, is an exact match within the USPS database of valid addresses.)

If you enter an address with an invalid apartment number, the result will look like this:

• dpv_match_code = S (Confirmed By Dropping Secondary; address was DPV confirmed by dropping some or all of the secondary info (apartment, suite, etc).)
• dpv_footnotes = AACC (ZIP+4 matched; city/state/zip + Street are all valid. Confirmed address by dropping secondary (apartment, suite, etc.) information)
• footnotes = S# (The secondary information (apartment, suite, etc.) doesn’t match that on the national ZIP+4 file. The secondary information, although present on the input address, wasn’t valid in the range found on the national ZIP+4 file.)

(A dpv_match_code of "S" means that we were unable to verify the address WITH the secondary number (suite or apartment info), so it reverted back to the default address without the secondary number. A dpv_footnoteof "CC" means that we had to drop the secondary information in order to get a match. The apartment number may have been incorrect, or the USPS doesn't store the apartment numbers for that address in their database.)

If you enter an address with a missing apartment number (when it should have an apartment number), your result will look like one of the following:

• dpv_match_code = "D" 
  Confirmed but missing secondary info.
  The address was DPV-confirmed, but it’s missing secondary information (apartment, suite, etc.).
• dpv_footnotes = "N1" 
  Confirmed with missing secondary information.
  The base address is valid, but it also needs a secondary number (e.g., an apartment number or suite).
• footnotes = "H#" 
  ZIP+4 information indicates that this address is a building. 
  The submitted address doesn’t include a secondary number (apartment, suite, etc.). Smarty recommends that the customer check the accuracy of the submitted address and add the missing secondary number to ensure the correct Delivery Point Barcode (DPBC).

A dpv_match_code of "D" indicates that the system knows that there should be additional secondary information (suite or apartment), but even lacking that secondary data, we were still able to verify the default location. A dpv_footnote of "N1" means that there should be secondary information, but it’s missing, so in order to get a match, the default address was used.

You will need to interpret the results and determine the appropriate response for your customer based on your use case. For example, if the data indicates that an address is likely to include a secondary unit, you may want to prompt the customer for an apartment or unit number.

However, the absence of a unit number doesn’t necessarily make the address invalid. Apartment buildings may have a valid lobby or building-level address in addition to individual unit addresses. For that reason, it’s more accurate to treat a missing unit number as potentially incomplete rather than automatically invalid.