DQE validates postal addresses in France and internationally by checking whether the submitted address can be recognized, standardized, and assessed against the reference data available for the relevant country.
What DQE checks
- country consistency;
- postal code and locality consistency;
- street identification when available;
- address structure and formatting;
- deliverability indicators when reference data allows it;
- postal normalization rules for the relevant country.
International address validation
DQE can validate addresses outside France. The level of validation and normalization may vary by country depending on the available reference data, postal standards, address structure, and local coverage.
For some countries, DQE may be able to validate and normalize addresses with a high level of precision. For others, the service may return a less precise result when local data does not allow full address-level validation.
French postal addresses
For French postal addresses, DQE relies on La Poste reference data to determine whether an address is deliverable and to return a normalized postal format when possible.
Why the returned address may differ from the input
The returned address may be normalized to match postal standards and reference data while still representing the same deliverable destination. This can include changes to spelling, abbreviations, postal code formatting, locality naming, or address line structure.
When an address cannot be validated
An address may not be returned if the information provided is incomplete, inconsistent, misspelled, outside the available coverage, or cannot be matched with sufficient confidence against the relevant reference data.
Best practices
- Provide the country whenever possible.
- Submit the most complete address available.
- Avoid mixing postal information from different locations or countries.
- Verify the postal code, locality, and street name before submitting the request.
- Review the returned result according to the country-specific level of precision available.