An article about the ShipStation Address Validation feature that describes which databases it uses, which countries it works with, and what the various icons mean.
Address Validation is the process of checking the Recipient Address against an official database to ensure the address is valid. Many carriers will send an error and not create labels for invalid addresses.
ShipStation runs address validation on every order shipping to and within the supported countries (listed below). ShipStation even auto-corrects domestic and international addresses for these supported countries.
For details on how to edit an address that has been flagged as invalid, see our guide on how to Edit the Ship To Address.
Address Validation Database
For U.S. orders, ShipStation validates addresses against the USPS address validation database. For other supported countries, ShipStation validates addresses against the Melissa Database.
ShipStation's Address Verification feature supports the following countries:
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Australia
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Canada
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France
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Germany
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Great Britain
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Israel
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Italy
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Norway
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Spain
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Sweden
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United States
While the address validation will always run on orders shipping to the above countries, you are not required to use the automatic address correction feature.
ShipStation displays an icon to indicate the validation status of an order's delivery address. This icon appears in the Orders grid alongside the recipient's name and in the Order Details screen.
Orders Grid:
Order Details:
The table below provides a description of what each address validation icon means in ShipStation.
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Icon |
Description |
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Validated Domestic Address The address verification service has verified the address successfully, and the ship-to country is the same as the home country for your ShipStation account. For U.S.-based accounts, this icon also means the address is treated as a commercial address. |
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Validated Residential Address (U.S. only) Same as Validated Domestic Address, except the address is considered residential. A residential address may qualify for different services or rates. ShipStation cannot verify addresses as residential for non-U.S. countries. |
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Validated International Address (Supported Countries only) The address verification service has verified the address successfully, and the ship-to country is different than the home country for your ShipStation account. |
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Address not verified or Address not found This icon will appear for one of two reasons:
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Address Verification Warning The core components of the address (Address 1, City, State, and Postal Code) verified successfully, but there is either missing or extra information in the address that is preventing full validation. For example, an apartment number included in address line 2 cannot be verified, or there is additional text in address line 2 which is not needed. This warning will not prevent you from attempting to create a label. However, if the postage provider finds fault with the address, they may reject the label creation attempt and provide an additional error. If the postage provider returns additional errors, you will need to correct the address to create the label successfully. |
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Address Verification Error The address verification system encountered an error when attempting to validate the address, usually due to a missing or invalid value, or combination of values, in the City, State, and Postal Code fields. For example, the City field may be blank, or the postal code is in an incorrect format for the ship-to country. An address verification error will not prevent you from attempting to create a label. However, if the postage provider finds fault with the address, they may reject the label creation attempt and provide an additional error. If the postage provider returns additional errors, you will need to correct the address to create the label successfully. |
In addition to validating delivery addresses, ShipStation can also automatically standardise and correct addresses for supported countries.
US Address Validation Datatbase
For U.S. orders, ShipStation validates addresses against the USPS address validation database. For other supported countries, ShipStation validates addresses against the Melissa Database.
Address correction is enabled by default and can be enabled and disabled on a per-store basis.
About Automatic Address Correction
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ShipStation will still validate addresses when the automatic correction option is disabled.
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When using the address correction feature to standardise recipient addresses, there is a chance the closest matching address in either the USPS database (U.S. addresses) or Melissa database (all other countries) will not match the intended delivery address.
You can manually check addresses in these databases to confirm validation or discover what the expected address correction will be.
To check an international address in the Melissa database, you must create a user and log into their website. Their address validation requires the use of credits (currently, you receive a limited number of complementary credits every month once you register).