Over 1.7 million Canadians change addresses annually. Canadian National Change of Address (CNCOA) matches mailing list addresses to 36 months of change of address information for families, individuals and businesses. Approximately 1.2 million of those movers file a Change of Address Notification (COAN) form with Canada Post Corporation (CPC) and grant consent to licensees to use the electronic data for Canadian move update purposes. This service includes Canada Post approved Address Accuracy Program processing, which is similar to US Postal Service CASS approved address standardization process. The Address Accuracy Program processing is required to qualify for Canada Post’s Incentive Lettermail, Addressed Admail, and Publications Mail rates.

The Address Accuracy standard set by Canada Post is 95% -- at least 95% of the addresses on a mailing list must be valid addresses. Should this standard not be achieved on a particular mailing Canada Post will apply a rate adjustment to the mail pieces with inaccurate addresses.

Your mailing list will be processed and standardized through Canada Post recognized Address Validation and Correction software, and a Statement of Accuracy (SOA) is provided to report with your return file the percentage of accurate addresses when mail is deposited with Canada Post. You are required to keep a valid copy of the SOA on file in the event Canada Post requests a copy. Mailers must also generate a new SOA once a year for each customer database or on the contents of a merged database.

Note 1 - Rural Postal Code Indicator
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Canada Post has determined that if a record contains a valid, existing, rural postal code, then it is to be called "valid" regardless of the actual address content. Similarly, if it contains a valid existing "LVR" postal code, then it is to called "valid" regardless of the actual address content. These records are identified as "LR" and "LU".

Note 2 - Validation codes
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Urban	Rural
V = VALID	W = VALID
C = CORRECTABLE	D = CORRECTABLE
N = NOT CORRECTABLE	O = NOT CORRECTABLE

Note 3 – Change of Address Notification Type
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C = Canada Post initiated
X = Privacy
M = Move-backs
E = Estate
U = Urbanization
Blank = Regular

Note 4 - Nixie Indicator
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Y = Nixie
I = individual move
F = family move
B = business move

Note 5 - Move Type
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D = Domestic
F = Foreign

Note 6 - Software Evaluation & Recognition Program (SERP)
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V = Valid
N = Non-valid

Note 7 Address Type
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1 = Civil
2 = Civil with Route Service
3 = PO Box
4,6 = Rural Route
5 = General Delivery
7 = Mobile Route
8 = Suburban Service