USPS Cycle O

The United States Postal Service (USPS) has updated their mail-handling requirements as part of their Cycle O release. These changes will affect the definition of some values in the “dpv_footnotes” field of the US Street API response. Of particular note, the meaning of the “CC” and “N1” codes are being revised.

On Wednesday, July 19, 2023, we released the following changes into production.

Here are some significant changes that you should be aware of:

Output field "dpv_footnotes":

Maximum field width changes

1. Field addressee: varchar(50) has lengthened to varchar(64)
2. Field delivery_line_1: varchar(50) has lengthened to varchar(64)
3. Field delivery_line_2: varchar(50) has lengthened to varchar(64)
4. Field last_line: varchar(50) has lengthened to varchar(64)

Notes

1. In the past, you may have received an AABB footnote to indicate that an address was perfectly valid. Going forward, you may also receive a value of AABBCC if an unnecessary secondary number is included with the address.
2. This is a new response value. Expect to see AAC1 to indicate that the submitted secondary number wasn't matched, but one is required in order to have a deliverable address.
3. In the past, an AAN1 footnote would indicate simply that a secondary number wasn’t provided but is now required.

Known issues

1. USPS has confirmed an issue in the July Cycle "O" release where some street names beginning with words such as "via" or "plaza" may not be found unless you leave those words out of the request.

• A fix will be available in the August data release.