Canadian · Lookup
Postal code lookup.
Decode a Canadian postal code into province, Forward Sortation Area, and urban or rural designation. No network calls: everything runs locally.
Inputs
Result
Enter a postal code and press Lookup.
About Canadian postal codes
A Canadian postal code is six alphanumeric characters in the pattern A1A 1A1. The first three characters, the Forward Sortation Area (FSA), identify the province and a coarse geographic region. The last three, the Local Delivery Unit (LDU), pin down a specific block or building.
First letter by province / territory
- A Newfoundland & Labrador · B Nova Scotia · C PEI · E New Brunswick
- G, H, J Quebec · K, L, M, N, P Ontario
- R Manitoba · S Saskatchewan · T Alberta · V British Columbia
- X NT / Nunavut · Y Yukon
If the second character is 0, the area is rural. Otherwise it is urban.
TNAADO Inc. · Toronto
What a postal code actually identifies
A Canadian postal code is six characters alternating letter and digit. The first three, the forward sortation area, identify a geographic region: the first letter is the province or territory, and a zero as the second character means a rural route. The last three, the local delivery unit, identify a specific delivery point, which can be one side of a block, a single large building, or one high-volume recipient with a code to itself.
The mistake people make. Treating a postal code as a neighbourhood. A forward sortation area can span very different areas, and a single downtown tower can hold a code of its own, so postal codes are a poor proxy for demographics or catchment. They are also reassigned as delivery routes change, which is why address validation should run against Canada Post’s current data rather than a cached list.