UK Postcodes Format

Each UK postcode symbolizes the area, a district within that area and a street/part of a street. Commonly, UK postcodes have a hierarchical system of the following formats:

• X1 1XX
• X11 1XX
• X1X 1XX
• XX1 1XX
• XX11 1XX
• XX1X 1XX

where X represents a letter and 1 a digit. The first letter (or pair of letters) stands for the area. The following digit (or digits) signifies the district within that area and etc. You may see the list of UK postcode areas on the page.

UK postcodes are divided by the space into two parts. The part of UK postcode before the space is called outward code. Outward codes of UK postcodes are used to address mail from one sorting office to the destination sorting office. The part of UK postcode after the space is known as inward code. Inward codes of UK postcodes are used in mail sorting of individual delivery rounds.