How an address is written in Hong Kong SAR China
The postal format table for Hong Kong SAR China — the order the lines go in, the parts its operator requires, what it calls them, and the words it prints on a box — and, separately, what this server actually holds for Hong Kong SAR China, so the page never implies a check it cannot run.
Live demo
POST /demo/address · no key needed
Response
Look up any address to see the full API response, straight from the live service. The country decides which format it is read against.
The order the lines go in
The parts are named rather than filled in: Spaw does not know an address in Hong Kong SAR China and will not invent one. This block is produced by the same function that rewrites a real address, so the line order, the capitals Hong Kong SAR China asks for and any text its operator prints on every envelope are the checker's own behaviour rather than a second description of it.
Organisation 12 Street name Flat or unit District AREA
No recipient line: nothing in the response is about a person, so the name the envelope carries is not part of what is checked.
| field | called here | required | capitals |
|---|---|---|---|
| organization | Organisation | optional | — |
| addressLine1 | Street name | required | — |
| addressLine2 | Flat or unit | optional | — |
| locality | District | optional | — |
| administrativeArea | Area | required | yes |
No house-number rule is carried for Hong Kong SAR China, so the international default is used: the house number comes before the street name.
The table also carries a local layout for Hong Kong SAR China, and it runs the other way round: the area first and the street last. The order above is the Latin one, which is what an address rewritten here is written into.
The postal code
The table carries no postal code pattern for Hong Kong SAR China, so an address here is never marked down for lacking one and a value that is supplied is passed through unchecked. That is the honest answer: this page will not invent a format for a country that does not publish one.
No Hong Kong SAR China postcode directory is installed here, so a well-formed postal code is never confirmed to exist — only its shape is checked, and postcode_not_found is never answered for Hong Kong SAR China.
What Hong Kong SAR China calls an address that is not a front door
The words below are Hong Kong SAR China's own, taken from its postal operator's addressing guide, and they are the words the checker reads. Because they are carried, an address here with none of them answers street.
| address_type | written as |
|---|---|
| private_mailbox Private mailbox at a mail-receiving agency | PMB |
| po_box Post-office box | PO BOX, P O BOX, GPO BOX, G P O BOX |
| general_delivery Held at the counter for collection | POSTE RESTANTE, GENERAL DELIVERY |
A post-office box is the ordinary way to receive mail in Hong Kong SAR China, so a box here carries no risk weight at all. Scoring it would penalise almost every address in the country for being addressed the way the country addresses things.
What can be checked for a Hong Kong SAR China address
Read from the datasets this server holds right now, not written into the page. For most countries the answer is the written form and the postcode shape and nothing beyond them — in particular not the row people assume is always there. An address can be perfectly formed and still not exist, and where no register is installed nothing here will pretend to know which.
| check | for HK | what the answer means |
|---|---|---|
| Written form | yes | The address is split into Hong Kong SAR China's own parts and rewritten in the order above. A missing required part is named in one typed reason rather than a general failure. |
| postal code pattern | not used here | Hong Kong SAR China has no postal code in the table, so nothing is checked and nothing is held against an address for lacking one. |
| postal code exists | no | No Hong Kong SAR China directory is installed, so a well-formed postal code is never confirmed or denied — only its shape is checked. |
| Kind of delivery point | yes | Hong Kong SAR China's own box naming is carried, so an address with no marker answers street rather than unknown. |
| Street exists | no | No register is installed for Hong Kong SAR China, so a street is neither confirmed nor denied: match_level answers null. |
| Building exists | no | No address register is installed for Hong Kong SAR China, so exists answers null: not evaluated, never no. Absence is not evidence here. |
| Companies at the address | no | No open company register is installed for Hong Kong SAR China, so companies_registered answers null and no mail-drop conclusion is drawn from a count. |
| Known mailbox branch | no | No operator branch list covers Hong Kong SAR China, so is_mail_drop is never set from one here. |
| Post actually arrives | no | Not from this page, and not from open data in any country: whether post is delivered, and the vacant, residential and agency flags that go with it, are the postal service's own licensed product. Those fields answer deliverability_checked: false rather than a guess. |
Null means not evaluated, never no. How to read an address-existence answer sets out what a premise, street or postcode match proves, and what absence proves.
Other countries
- Greece
- South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands
- Guatemala
- Guam
- Heard & McDonald Islands
- Honduras
- Croatia
- Haiti
- Check any address
address-formats 2026-09-05 · address-rules 2026-09-17 · checked 2026-09-18
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