Why Do Postcodes Change?

The Postcode system changes continually with around 1.25 million address changes in an average year. As a result, Royal Mail are forced to make changes to the Postcode system in order to maintain postal delivery efficiency.

For example, new housing developments or business parks in already densely populated areas can leave no free postcodes for Royal Mail to allocate. this can lead to the recoding of a wider area to create additional codes to allocate.

Postcode Changes For October 2015

The documents linked to below detail the latest Postcode changes and address statistics for reference.

Business & Vacant Organisations

This table shows the number of businesses and vacant organisations on the Royal Mail address database, the Postcode Address File (PAF®). The table compares the latest month's figures with those from the previous month, identifying the percentage variation between the months. > Download

PAF^® Delivery Point Changes

This document shows the number of delivery point additions, deletions and changes and the reasons for the change.
> Download

New Sectors & Localities

This table shows the sectors and localities applied to the Postcode Address File (PAF®) system this month.
> Download

Overall PAF Statistics and Changes

This table shows the total numbers of, and number of changes to, Postcodes, localities, Post Towns, delivery points and other PAF elements. > Download