A French address is a street-and-number address with a national postal layout on top of it. That layout is defined, line by line, by a norm, and it carries something most countries have no equivalent for: CEDEX, a business delivery service whose post code is not the post code of the place.
This article describes the French address format, how CDQ represents it in the CDQ address model, how CEDEX is recognised and delivered, and which reference data CDQ maintains for France. It is the reference for anyone mapping French business partner data into CDQ, or consuming curated French addresses from CDQ.
In this article, you will understand:
- How the French postal layout is built, and what each line is allowed to contain
- Why neither the region nor the department appears on a French address, and what still needs them
- How each French level maps to a concept in the CDQ address model, and which SAP field it reaches
- What CEDEX is, why the CEDEX code must never overwrite the commune post code, and how CDQ holds both
- Which reference data CDQ maintains for France, and what the published values look like
- Where the current CDQ coverage for France is incomplete
Available in:
- CDQ Wiki: business partner metadata for France: browse the published French metadata
A French address has the ordinary European shape: a number, a street, a post code and a place. Most of it needs no special handling.
What is specific to France is narrower, and it is where integrations actually go wrong:
| Specific to France | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| The postal address is a fixed set of lines, each with a defined meaning | line 3 holds a building and line 5 holds a post office box, so the first non-empty line is not the street |
| The number can carry a repetition indicator instead of a letter | 12 BIS is a house number, and BIS belongs to the number rather than to the street |
| The number is written before the street | a presentation rule, and the only part of the French street line that differs from the German one |
| A large share of business addresses are CEDEX addresses | the five digits on the last line are then not the commune's post code, and both values have to be kept |
| Neither the region nor the department appears on an address | a French address without either is complete as an address, and the department is already inside the post code |
France has four levels below the country. One of them is used to deliver mail, and one more where there is no street.
| Level | French | What it is | Used to address mail | Example |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | region | top level subdivision, 13 in metropolitan France plus the overseas ones | no | Ile-de-France |
| 2 | departement | numbered subdivision of a region, and the source of the first two digits of the post code | no, it is encoded in the post code | Rhone (69) |
| 3 | commune | the municipality, and the unit a post code is issued for | yes | Ecully |
| 4 | lieu-dit | a named place inside a commune, used where there is no street | yes, where there is no street | Le Grand Champ |
Below that come the street and the number, then the building, staircase, floor and flat.
The two levels that are not used to address mail are still business data: the department is what a French establishment is registered against, and both levels are used for reporting and territory assignment. The department is the cheaper of the two to obtain, because the first two digits of any metropolitan post code are the department number.
The French postal address is a sequence of lines, each with a defined content. Using the line numbering of the national norm:
| Line | Contains | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | the company or the person | SOCIETE DUPONT |
| 2 | the point of delivery inside the organisation: department, floor, flat, care of | SERVICE ACHATS |
| 3 | the building, entrance, staircase, residence or industrial zone | BATIMENT B ENTREE 4 |
| 4 | the number, the repetition indicator, the street type and the street name | 12 BIS RUE DE LA REPUBLIQUE |
| 5 | the lieu-dit, the post office box, or a special delivery mention | BP 40123 |
| 6 | the post code and the locality, with CEDEX where it applies | 69134 ECULLY CEDEX |
| 7 | the country, for international mail | FRANCE |
A complete address:
SOCIETE DUPONT
SERVICE ACHATS
BATIMENT B ENTREE 4
12 BIS RUE DE LA REPUBLIQUE
BP 40123
69134 ECULLY CEDEXThe two properties of this layout that matter most for an integration are that line 3 is not a street and line 6 may not be a commune post code. Both are covered below.
French writes the number before the street: 12 rue de la Republique, never rue de la Republique 12. Where two properties share a number, the second is distinguished by a repetition indicator rather than by a letter: 12 BIS, 12 TER, 12 QUATER. The indicator belongs to the number, not to the street name.
On the line 75362 PARIS CEDEX 08, the five digits are a CEDEX code allocated to a business, not the post code of the 8th arrondissement. Writing that value into the field a downstream system treats as the geographic post code makes the address undeliverable by any route other than CEDEX, and breaks every post code based statistic, tax jurisdiction lookup and territory assignment built on top of it. The two values are different things and both must be kept.
Line 3 holds a building, not a street. BATIMENT B, ENTREE 4, ESCALIER C, RESIDENCE LES TILLEULS and ZONE INDUSTRIELLE DU BOIS all appear on the line above the street. A mapping that sends the first non-empty line to the street field puts a building name there and loses the street.
BP is a post office box, and it is written on line 5. BP 40123 is a boite postale. CS (course speciale) and TSA (tri service arrivee) are further La Poste delivery mentions that appear in the same position and are equally not streets.
The department number is inside the post code. The first two digits of a French post code are the department, except for Corsica and the overseas territories. This makes the post code a usable cross-check on the department, and makes a department supplied separately redundant rather than authoritative.
Accents are dropped in postal writing, not in the name. La Poste asks for uppercase without accents on the envelope, so ECULLY and Ecully are the same commune. The unaccented form is a presentation convention and must not be treated as a different value.
A lieu-dit replaces the street; it does not accompany it. In rural France a complete address is name, lieu-dit, post code, commune. There is no street and no number. Logic that requires a street will corrupt these addresses.
France has several communes sharing a name, distinguished only by their department. A commune name on its own does not identify a place, so the post code or the department has to travel with it.
CEDEX (courrier d'entreprise a distribution exceptionnelle) is a La Poste service for organisations that receive high mail volumes. The organisation collects its mail at a sorting office rather than receiving it at the street address, and it is given a CEDEX code for that purpose.
| Form | Example | Where it applies |
|---|---|---|
| CEDEX without a number | 69134 ECULLY CEDEX | everywhere except Paris, Lyon and Marseille |
| CEDEX with a sorting office number | 75362 PARIS CEDEX 08 | Paris, Lyon and Marseille, where the number identifies the sorting office |
Three facts follow from this, and they drive the whole model:
- The CEDEX code and the commune post code are different values.
75362is the CEDEX code; the 8th arrondissement of Paris is75008. - The word CEDEX belongs to the locality line, not to the street and not to the post code.
- The CEDEX code is allocated per organisation, so it is a property of the business partner at that address rather than of the address alone. That is why it can be resolved from the business register.
The rule is that nothing is overwritten and nothing is invented.
| Value | Where it goes | Type |
|---|---|---|
| the CEDEX code | additional post code | CEDEX |
| the commune post code | post code | REGULAR |
| the locality with the word CEDEX and any sorting office number, exactly as written | locality, its own level | POST_OFFICE_CITY |
| the commune name with the word CEDEX removed | locality, level 1 | CITY |
So 69134 ECULLY CEDEX is stored as post code 69130 typed REGULAR, additional post code 69134 typed CEDEX, locality Ecully typed CITY, and a second locality ECULLY CEDEX typed POST_OFFICE_CITY. The delivered form can then be reassembled exactly, and a consumer that only wants the geographic post code can take the regular one.
| Route | What is used | What comes back |
|---|---|---|
| By company identifier | the SIRET of the establishment | the CEDEX code, the commune post code, the street and the locality as the French business register holds them |
| By CEDEX code | the five digits already on the address | the matching commune post code |
| By name and address | company name, street and locality | the register entry, when it matches in full |
The CEDEX values are taken from the French business register, which records the CEDEX code of an establishment alongside its address. A register match is therefore evidence, not a guess: it ties the CEDEX code to a named company at a known SIRET.
Where none of the three routes returns a confident match, the address text is the remaining evidence. The word CEDEX in the locality, in the post code or in the delivery point line is what identifies a CEDEX address. A digit pattern is not evidence of CEDEX and does not stand in for the word: a five digit code is a commune post code unless something says otherwise.
The SAP post code field takes the CEDEX code where one exists, because that is the code the mail has to carry. The commune post code stays available as the regular post code on the curated address. The city line takes the post office city, which is the locality written as La Poste expects it, and the plain commune name moves to the street supplement line.
The CDQ address model has two parallel hierarchies. Administrative areas represent the political containers, typed REGION and COUNTY. Localities represent the places themselves, typed CITY, DISTRICT, QUARTER, BLOCK, POST_OFFICE_CITY or POSTAL_DELIVERY_POINT_CITY. Streets are held as thoroughfares with the number in its own field, and buildings, staircases, floors and flats as typed premises.
France maps as follows:
| French level | CDQ concept | Type | SAP field |
|---|---|---|---|
| region | administrative area, level 1 | REGION | region |
| departement | administrative area, level 2 | COUNTY | county |
| commune | locality, level 1 | CITY | city |
| locality as written for CEDEX | locality, own level | POST_OFFICE_CITY | city, and the commune moves to the street supplement |
| arrondissement, quartier | locality, level 2 | DISTRICT | district |
| lieu-dit | locality | QUARTER | district |
| zone industrielle | thoroughfare | INDUSTRIAL_ZONE | appended to district |
| street type and street name | thoroughfare | STREET | street |
| number with its repetition indicator | thoroughfare number | n/a | house number |
| batiment, immeuble, residence | premise | BUILDING | street supplement 1 |
| etage | premise | LEVEL | floor |
| appartement | premise | APARTMENT | room number |
| boite postale | postal delivery point | POST_OFFICE_BOX | PO box |
| commune post code | post code | REGULAR | post code |
| CEDEX code | additional post code | CEDEX | post code, in preference to the regular one |
France is one of the countries for which the formatted address writes the number in front of the street value, giving 12 BIS RUE DE LA REPUBLIQUE. The two values remain separate in the model; only the presentation is reversed.
CDQ delivers a region and a department with their ISO 3166-2 codes. An SAP system does not validate against ISO: it validates the region field against its own region key table, T005S, which is part of a customer's configuration. That key exists for tax and jurisdiction purposes, which is why it follows national tax or statistical numbering rather than ISO, and why the level it sits at differs from one country to the next.
The region key is customer-specific configuration, so this standard does not define one: a T005S is specific to a customer and to a client, and no single value would be correct everywhere. What this standard fixes is the ISO 3166-2 code. The mapping from it to the key your system expects is yours to maintain.
For France the key your configuration holds is conventionally the department, not the region. A French address reaching SAP therefore needs the department number, which CDQ delivers as the administrative area level 2 code, and the region has no key of its own to map to.
Treat the ISO code as the value CDQ guarantees and the SAP key as a mapping you own. Confirm which level your configuration uses before deciding which CDQ field feeds it.
12 BIS RUE DE LA REPUBLIQUE, 69134 ECULLY CEDEX, in the CDQ address model:
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Country | FR |
Administrative area 1 (REGION) | Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes |
| Administrative area 1 short name | ARA |
Administrative area 2 (COUNTY) | Rhone |
| Administrative area 2 short name | FR-69 |
Locality 1 (CITY) | Ecully |
Locality 2 (POST_OFFICE_CITY) | ECULLY CEDEX |
Thoroughfare (STREET) | Rue de la Republique |
| Thoroughfare number | 12 BIS |
Post code (REGULAR) | 69130 |
Additional post code (CEDEX) | 69134 |
The examples below show the shape of each dataset, not its full contents. The complete published lists for France are on the CDQ Wiki page business partner metadata for France, which also covers legal forms, identifier types and the integrated data sources.
32 entries, covering the 13 metropolitan regions, the overseas regions and departments, and the overseas collectivities. Each carries an ISO 3166-2 code and names in French, with English, German and Chinese where these exist.
| Code | French | English | Also matched as |
|---|---|---|---|
FR-ARA | Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes | Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes | AUVERGNE-RHONE-ALPES |
FR-IDF | Ile-de-France | Ile-de-France | ILE-DE-FRANCE |
FR-PAC | Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur | Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur | PROVENCE-ALPES-COTE D'AZUR |
FR-BRE | Bretagne | Brittany | BRETAGNE |
Each region also carries a short name of at most twenty characters, which is the form a receiving system with a narrow region field can take: Prov-Alpes-Cote d'Az for Provence-Alpes-Cote d'Azur.
98 entries, one per metropolitan department, each linked to its region and keyed by its ISO code. The key is the department number, which is also the first two digits of every post code in that department.
| Code | Region | Name |
|---|---|---|
FR-01 | FR-ARA | Ain |
FR-69 | FR-ARA | Rhone |
FR-2A | FR-20R | Corse-du-Sud |
FR-75C | FR-IDF | Paris |
Three of the entries are not numbered departments but collectivities that occupy the same level: FR-69M for the Metropole de Lyon, FR-6AE for the Collectivite europeenne d'Alsace and FR-75C for Paris.
The words that identify a street type, a delivery mention or a building, published with the official La Poste abbreviation. Each term is typed to the CDQ concept it identifies, so a street word identifies a thoroughfare and a building word a premise.
| Identifies | Term | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
| Street | Avenue | AV |
| Street | Boulevard | BD, also matched as blvd, bld, bl |
| Street | Chemin | CHEM |
| Street | Route | RTE |
| Street | Impasse | IMP |
| Street | Allee | ALL |
| Street | Place | PL |
| Street | Rond-Point | RPT |
| Industrial zone | Zone industrielle | ZI |
| Post office box | Boite Postale | BP |
| Post office box | Case Postale | CP |
The abbreviation is what the SAP street line carries. Where a term is recognised, the expanded form is written to the thoroughfare value and the abbreviated form to the thoroughfare short name, and the short name is what the street field takes.
The region and the department are standardised against reference data: the value is matched and the canonical name and ISO code are written back. The department also carries its number, so a post code and a department can be checked against each other.
Street terms are recognised in the address text and rewritten to the official La Poste abbreviation, so avenue and AV produce the same delivered value.
CEDEX is resolved against the French business register where the address carries a SIRET or a full company match, and both the CEDEX code and the commune post code are delivered.
The commune, the lieu-dit and the levels below them are preserved as submitted. Where an address provider is enabled, it can enrich and complete them.
These are the gaps worth knowing about before designing an integration.
| Limitation | What it means for an integration |
|---|---|
| CEDEX resolution depends on the register answering | The CEDEX code and the commune post code are taken from the French business register, reached by SIRET, by CEDEX code, or by a full match on company name, street and locality. Where none of those routes resolves, the address text is the only remaining evidence, and the word CEDEX in the locality, the post code or the delivery point line is what identifies a CEDEX address. Supplying a SIRET is by far the most effective thing you can do for a French batch. |
| The department and the region are standardised, and not derived | A department or region that arrives is matched against reference data and completed. One that is absent stays absent, because CDQ standardises a supplied value rather than deriving one. Since neither level is part of a French postal address, absent is the normal case. The first two digits of a metropolitan post code are the department number, so this is the cheapest of the French gaps to close from your own side. |
| The address vocabulary covers the common forms and not yet all of them | Where a French street type is published, the street is delivered expanded in the thoroughfare value and abbreviated in the short name, and the short name is what the SAP street line takes. Where a term is not yet published, the value is preserved exactly as submitted and no short name is produced. This applies to the building, staircase, entrance and floor on line 3 as well as to street types, so map line 3 to a premise or an address supplement on your side rather than to the street. |
CEDEX handling replaces the submitted post code with the commune post code and moves the CEDEX code to an additional post code, by design. So keep the value you sent, and compare the delivered regular post code and the delivered CEDEX code against it before adopting either. This is the single most valuable check on a French batch.
A French address is a street-and-number address written in a fixed line layout, with the number in front of the street and a repetition indicator instead of a house letter. Line 3 carries the building and line 5 carries the post office box or the lieu-dit, so neither belongs in the street field.
Of the four French levels below the country, only the commune is used to deliver mail, with the lieu-dit standing in where there is no street. Neither the region nor the department is written on an address, and the department is already encoded in the first two digits of the post code.
CDQ places the region in administrative area level 1 and the department in level 2, the commune in locality level 1 and the arrondissement or quarter in level 2. The street and its number stay in separate fields, and the building, floor and flat are typed premises.
CEDEX is modelled as two post codes rather than one: the CEDEX code as an additional post code typed CEDEX, and the commune post code as the regular one. The locality is kept twice as well, once as the commune and once as the post office city exactly as La Poste writes it. CEDEX values are resolved from the French business register by SIRET, by CEDEX code or by a full company match.
Regions and departments are maintained as CDQ reference data, together with the La Poste street term and abbreviation list. The commune and the levels below it are preserved as submitted, and CEDEX resolution depends on the business register being reachable, which a supplied SIRET makes considerably more likely.
- Business partner metadata for France
- Germany Address Standard
- Portugal Address Standard
- United States Address Standard
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