Zip code in the Netherlands

With the Netherlands, the zip code is composed of four digits followed by two capital letters. In the official C-W communication, the letters are separated from the figures by a space. The figures indicate the city, the village or the district, the letters make it possible to specify more and to indicate the street or the part of street. A combination of figures is always single for a given locality; the combination chiffres+lettres is always single for a given street (with a margin of 2 or 3 exceptions). There exist combinations of figures indicating only one street. A postal area (thus a single combination of 4 digits) is always inside a common ; if a village is located at horse between two communes, it will have several zip codes.

The zip codes were introduced in 1978. Until 2005, the letters F , I , O , Q , U and Y were not used for technical reasons of automatic recognition, but as for a certain number of postal areas all the combinations were used, one starts to use them. The combinations SA , SD and S are not used for historical reasons related to the Second world war.

The zip codes finishing into 0 indicate P.0. boxes systematically. For certain big cities, all the series xx00-xx09 is reserved for the P.0. boxes.

The first zip code, 1000 AA thus indicates P.0. boxes to Amsterdam. For the addresses, the first Dutch zip code is the 1011 AA , indicating De Ruijterkade, behind the central station. The last Dutch zip code is the 9999 XL with Stitswerd in Groningue.

The combination zip code + number of house is always single. It is enough to identify an address; during one moment, this double code was used like identifier of the bicycles, like measures dissuasion from flights of bicycle.

Zip code list by area

References and sources

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