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Map Multiple Canadian Postal Codes and Addresses

By Dan · Data vintage: National Address Register, June 2026 · Last updated September 2026

Paste a postal code, a full address, or a mix of both, and this tool places each one on a map at the best precision the information actually supports - a house number and street get the door, a postal code alone gets the district.

See exactly how accurate a postal code alone really is before you paste anything.

Confirm your columns

We detected the postal code column automatically. House number, street, unit, and city need your confirmation - nothing is guessed from the numbers in the file.

This tool plots Canadian postal codes and addresses on a map, and tells you honestly how precisely each one landed. Paste a single postal code, a full street address, or a mixed batch of both - the tool works out per row what information it has and places it at the best precision that information actually supports. A full address with a house number gets pinned to that building. A postal code on its own gets pinned to the middle of that postal area, which is a real district, not a point, and the tool says so rather than showing a confident-looking pin that overstates what it knows.

The data behind this tool is Statistics Canada's National Address Register, the same register used across government and industry for authoritative Canadian address matching. Records identified as PO boxes, postal station boxes, or general delivery were removed before this data was served, since a delivery destination is not a place you can plot a pin on. That filtering, and the accuracy figures below, are measured directly from the data, not estimated.

Before you paste anything: what to expect

A Canadian postal code alone is not delivery-grade precision. Measured directly:

  • Only 42.8% of Canadian postal codes have every address inside them within 50 metres of the code's centre point. 69.2% are within 100 metres, 89.0% within 200 metres.
  • Rural postal codes (second character zero) are 0.54% of all codes but hold 13.6% of addresses, with a median worst case of 9,388 metres from the code's centre to an address inside it.
  • Giving the house number and street alongside the postal code gets you the door, not the district.

Rural coverage is also thinner than the national picture suggests. Filtering removed PO box, postal station, and general delivery records, which is about 2% of records nationally - but in some rural areas it's far more: S0K (Saskatchewan) lost 53% of its records, S0J 47%, V0A (British Columbia) 40%, A0M (Quebec) 37%. Those exclusions are correct - a PO box is not a place - but it means a rural search here may turn up less than an urban one, and that's worth knowing up front rather than discovering it as a gap.

Map Canadian Postal Codes and Addresses Honestly

Most postal code mapping tools show every result the same way, whether it's an exact address or a district the size of several square kilometres. This one doesn't. Every placed row states its precision in plain words - exact address, somewhere on this street, or approximate postal area - and rows placed at anything less than an exact address get a visible, non-alarming marker so you can tell at a glance which pins to trust for a delivery and which ones are a rough guide only.

That honesty is only possible because the underlying data supports it. Statistics Canada's National Address Register carries the house number and street for millions of real Canadian addresses, not just postal code centre points, so where a full address is given, this tool can place it at the actual building rather than the middle of its postal district.

Plot Multiple Postal Codes on a Map

Paste a list of postal codes or addresses, one per line, from a spreadsheet, an email, or anywhere else. The tool reads the whole list and resolves each row independently - there's no single precision setting for the batch, because a real list usually mixes rows with different amounts of detail, and each row deserves whatever precision its own information actually supports.

  • Just a postal code - placed at the postal area's centre, with the caveat visible
  • A full address - placed at the exact house, if it exists in the data
  • A street with no house number - placed on that street, with the count of matching records and how far they spread
  • A CSV export - upload it directly and map the columns, no reformatting needed

Frequently Asked Questions

How accurate is a Canadian postal code on a map?

Less accurate than most people assume. Measured directly against the underlying address data: only 42.8% of Canadian postal codes have every address inside them within 50 metres of the code's centre point, 69.2% within 100 metres, and 89.0% within 200 metres. A Canadian postal code is a district, not a delivery point - it typically covers one side of a city block, or in rural areas, many square kilometres. Giving the house number and street alongside the postal code resolves to the actual address instead of the district's centre.

What is a Forward Sortation Area (FSA)?

The first three characters of a Canadian postal code (for example, K1A in K1A 0B1) are its Forward Sortation Area, or FSA. This is the geographic unit Canada Post and Statistics Canada organise mail and address data around, roughly comparable to a US ZIP code's first three digits. This tool uses the FSA to locate the right area before narrowing down to a specific address.

Why is my rural postal code showing in the wrong place?

Rural postal codes cover far more ground than urban ones. Codes with a zero as the second character are only 0.54% of all Canadian postal codes but hold 13.6% of addresses, and their worst-case spread is a median of 9,388 metres - the postal code's centre point can genuinely be over nine kilometres from an address inside it. This isn't a bug in the tool; it reflects how Canada Post assigns rural codes across large areas. Adding the street name narrows the placement to that specific street rather than the whole rural district.

Can I map more than one postal code at a time?

Yes. Paste a list of postal codes or addresses, one per line, or upload a CSV file and match the columns. Each row is placed at the best precision its own information supports - a row with just a postal code gets postal-area precision, a row with a full address gets placed at the exact house wherever that address exists in the data.

What is the difference between a Canadian postal code and a US ZIP code?

A Canadian postal code is six characters, alternating letters and digits (A1A 1A1), and typically covers a much smaller area than a US ZIP code - often a single side of one city block in urban areas. A ZIP code is five digits and usually covers a larger area, closer in size to a Canadian FSA (the first three characters of a postal code) than to a full Canadian postal code. This is also why a Canadian postal code alone can look precise while still being a district rather than a single address: even a small area centred on a point isn't the same as the point itself.

Why does it say my postal code is a PO box?

827 Canadian postal codes have no mappable address behind them because every address record under that code was a PO box, a postal station box, or general delivery - a delivery destination, not a physical place. When you enter one of these, the tool tells you specifically which one it is rather than a generic "not found", since a PO box needs a different kind of message than an address that simply doesn't exist in the data.

Where does this data come from?

Statistics Canada's National Address Register (catalogue 46-26-0002), vintage June 2026, used under the Statistics Canada Open Licence. Full attribution and licence details are on the credits page. PO box, postal station, and general delivery records were removed before this data was served, since they identify a delivery destination rather than a place; that filtering removes about 2% of records nationally, but far more in some rural areas - full details on the credits page.

Can I export the results?

Yes. The export button gives you a CSV with your original input, the matched coordinates, the precision achieved for each row, and the reason for any row that couldn't be placed. The Statistics Canada attribution is included in the file itself, not just on this page.

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