Postcodes in New Zealand

In June 2006, New Zealand introduced a new postcode system, which, unlike the previous system, applies to all items of mail, from June 2008.

New Zealand Post did not require individual items of mail to include the postcode in the address, as optical character recognition (OCR) enabled automated sorting machines to scan entire addresses, rather than just post codes, as was the case with older machines. Until the early 1990s, all mail was sorted manually.

There are 1856 4-digit postcodes, each of which may serve up to 10000 individual locations. They start with 0 in Northland and progress southward, ending with codes starting with 9 in Otago and Southland.

In October 2008, New Zealand Post launched a 'remember your postcode' campaign, offering a NZ$10,000 prize for remembering a postcode.

The first two digits specify the area, the third digit specifies the type of delivery (street, PO Box, Private Bag, or Rural delivery), and the last digit specifies the specific lobby, RD (rural delivery) number, or suburb.

In cities and large towns, the last two digits indicate one of the four modes of delivery, as illustrated by addresses in Palmerston North:

Although postcodes were first introduced in New Zealand in 1977, these were used entirely for pre-sorting large volumes of mail in bulk, similar to the Mailsort system used by Royal Mail in the United Kingdom. Consequently, post codes were not usually seen in addresses:

Under the old system, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch were divided into postal zones, which were incorporated into the post code system for use in bulk mailings. For example, for the former Wellington 4:

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