LetterAgent
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Home > Guides > Addressing a Letter to France
LetterAgent cannot mail a letter to France, because its recipients must have a United States or Canadian address, but a French address is easy once you know the pattern: name first, then street number and street, then the five-digit postcode before the city, with FRANCE in capitals on the last line.
A French address runs name, building details, street, postcode and city, country. The street number comes before the street name, as in "12 rue de la Paix." French street types are part of the name: rue (street), avenue, boulevard, chemin (lane), and place (square). Keep the number, street type, and street name on one line. The postcode and city share the last domestic line, with the postcode first, and the city name in capitals is common practice in France.
| Line | What goes there | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Recipient name | Mme Claire Martin |
| 2 | Building, floor, or apartment (if any) | Appt 4, 2e etage |
| 3 | Street number and street | 12 rue de la Paix |
| 4 | Postcode, then city | 75002 PARIS |
| 5 | Destination country, in capitals | FRANCE |
French postcodes are five digits. The first two digits are the department number, which maps to a region: 75 is Paris, 13 is Bouches-du-Rhone (Marseille), 69 is Rhone (Lyon), and 33 is Gironde (Bordeaux). Paris postcodes run 75001 to 75020, one per arrondissement, so the last two digits of a Paris postcode tell you the district. Overseas departments have three-digit prefixes (971 for Guadeloupe, 972 for Martinique, 973 for French Guiana, 974 for Reunion), and their postcodes still total five digits. If the postcode and the city do not match, trust neither: check with the recipient.
Cedex stands for Courrier d'Entreprise a Distribution Exceptionnelle, a special delivery service for organizations that receive large mail volumes, like big companies, government offices, and universities. A Cedex address looks like "75002 PARIS CEDEX 02" or "LYON CEDEX 07." The number after Cedex is not a postcode: it identifies the Cedex distribution office. If a recipient gives you a Cedex address, copy it exactly, including the number, and do not replace it with a normal postcode. Mail addressed to a Cedex without its number can be delayed while staff work out which office should take it.
Keep accented letters exactly as the recipient writes them: e, e with an acute accent, and e with a grave accent are different letters in French names and street names, and dropping the accent can change a name. If your keyboard cannot type accents, write the letter as best you can rather than dropping the letter entirely. French personal names run first name then family name, as in English, but formal mail uses "M." for a man and "Mme" for a woman before the name. Company names go on the first line, with the contact person on the second line, often introduced by "a l'attention de" (attention of).
Put your return address in the top left corner, with your own country name in capitals on its last line. Write the whole destination block in clear block capitals if you can, since French sorting machines read capitals well, and keep accents intact even in capitals. Leave the bottom strip of the envelope clear for sorting marks. If your post office offers an airmail marking, add it so the letter travels by air rather than by surface routes, which take far longer to France.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
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