List of postcode areas in the United Kingdom

This is a list of postcode areas, used by Royal Mail for the purposes of directing mail within the United Kingdom. The postcode area is the largest geographical unit used and forms the initial characters of the alphanumeric UK postcode. There are currently 121 geographic postcode areas in use in the UK and a further three often combined with these covering the Crown Dependencies of Guernsey, Jersey and Isle of Man.

Subdivision

Each postcode area is further divided into post towns and postcode districts. There are on average 20 postcode districts to a postcode area, with ZE having the lowest and BT the highest. The London post town is instead divided into several postcode areas.

Scope

The single or pair of letters chosen for postcode areas are generally intended as a mnemonic for the places served. Postcode areas, post towns and postcode districts do not follow political or local authority administrative boundaries and usually serve much larger areas than the place names with which they are associated. Many post towns are former "county towns" but postcode areas rarely align with the county area. For example, within the PA postcode area the PA1 and PA78 postcode districts are apart, and cover 5 local authority areas; and the eight postcode areas of the London post town cover only 40% of Greater London. The remainder of its area is covered by sections of twelve adjoining postcode areas: EN, IG, RM, DA, BR, TN, CR, SM, KT, TW, HA and UB.

United Kingdom postcode areas

Postcode area	Postcode area name	Code formation	Number of postcode districts within area
AB	Aberdeen	Aberdeen	33
AL	St Albans	St Albans	10
B	Birmingham	Birmingham	79
BA	Bath	Bath	19
BB	Blackburn	Blackburn	13
BD	Bradford	Bradford	24
BH	Bournemouth	Bournemouth	26
BL	Bolton	Bo'lton	10
BN	Brighton	B'righton	30
BR	Bromley	Bromley	8
BS	Bristol	Bristol	37
BT	Belfast	Belfast	81
CA	Carlisle	Carlisle	28
CB	Cambridge	Cambridge	16
CF	Cardiff	Cardiff	35
CH	Chester	Chester	37
CM	Chelmsford	Chelmsford	25
CO	Colchester	Colchester	16
CR	Croydon	Croydon	9
CT	Canterbury	Canterbury	21
CV	Coventry	Co'ventry	24
CW	Crewe	C'rewe	12
DA	Dartford	Dartford	18
DD	Dundee	Dundee	11
DE	Derby	Derby	23
DG	Dumfries	Dumfries and Galloway	15
DH	Durham	Durham	9
DL	Darlington	Darlington	17
DN	Doncaster	Do'ncaster	32
DT	Dorchester	D'orchester	11
DY	Dudley	Dudley	14
E	East London	East	20
EC	East Central London	East Central	23
EH	Edinburgh	Edinburgh	54
EN	Enfield	Enfield	11
EX	Exeter	Exeter	33
FK	Falkirk	Falkirk	21
FY	Blackpool	The Fylde	8
G	Glasgow	Glasgow	52
GL	Gloucester	Gloucester	27
GU	Guildford	Guildford	38
HA	Harrow	Harrow	10
HD	Huddersfield	Hu'ddersfield	9
HG	Harrogate	H'arrogate	5
HP	Hemel Hempstead	Hemel Hempstead	24
HR	Hereford	He'reford	9
HS	Hebrides	H'ebrides	9
HU	Hull	Hull	20
HX	Halifax	Halifax	7
IG	Ilford	Possibly Ilford and Gants Hill	11
IP	Ipswich	Ipswich	33
IV	Inverness	In'verness	52
KA	Kilmarnock	Possibly K'ilmarnock, or Kilmarnock and Ayr, or Kilmarnock and Arran	30
KT	Kingston upon Thames	Kingston upon Thames	24
KW	Kirkwall	Kirkwall	16
KY	Kirkcaldy	Kirkcaldy	16
L	Liverpool	Liverpool	40
LA	Lancaster	Lancaster	23
LD	Llandrindod Wells	Llandrindod Wells	8
LE	Leicester	Leicester	21
LL	Llandudno	Llandudno	67
LN	Lincoln	Lincoln	13
LS	Leeds	Leeds	29
LU	Luton	Luton	7
M	Manchester	Manchester	43
ME	Rochester	Medway	20
MK	Milton Keynes	Milton Keynes	26
ML	Motherwell	Motherwell	12
N	North London	North	23
NE	Newcastle upon Tyne	Newcastle upon Tyne	61
NG	Nottingham	Nottingham	29
NN	Northampton	Northampton	19
NP	Newport	Newport	18
NR	Norwich	No'rwich	35
NW	North West London	N'orth West	11
OL	Oldham	Oldham	16
OX	Oxford	Oxford	27
PA	Paisley	Paisley	67
PE	Peterborough	Peterborough	38
PH	Perth	Perth	43
PL	Plymouth	Plymouth	35
PO	Portsmouth	Portsmouth	34
PR	Preston	Preston	11
RG	Reading	Reading	30
RH	Redhill	Redhill	20
RM	Romford	Ro'mford	20
S	Sheffield	S'heffield	45
SA	Swansea	Swansea	51
SE	South East London	South East	28
SG	Stevenage	Stevenage	19
SK	Stockport	Stockport	19
SL	Slough	Slough	10
SM	Sutton	Possibly Sutton and Morden, the two post towns that are within the SM area	7
SN	Swindon	Swindon	18
SO	Southampton	Southampton	23
SP	Salisbury	Salisbury Plain	11
SR	Sunderland	Sunderland	8
SS	Southend-on-Sea	Southend-on-Sea	17
ST	Stoke-on-Trent	Stoke-on-Trent	21
SW	South West London	South West	27
SY	Shrewsbury	Shrewsbury	25
TA	Taunton	Taunton	24
TD	Galashiels	Tweeddale	15
TF	Telford	Telford	13
TN	Tunbridge Wells	Tu'nbridge Wells	40
TQ	Torquay	T'orquay	14
TR	Truro	Truro	27
TS	Cleveland	Teesside	29
TW	Twickenham	Twickenham	20
UB	Southall	Ux'bridge	11
W	West London	W'est	26
WA	Warrington	Warrington	16
WC	West Central London	West Central	14
WD	Watford	Watford	11
WF	Wakefield	Wakefield	17
WN	Wigan	Wigan	8
WR	Worcester	Worcester	15
WS	Walsall	Walsall	15
WV	Wolverhampton	Wolverhampton	16
YO	York	York	29
ZE	Lerwick	Zetland	3

Crown dependencies

The Crown dependencies did not introduce postcodes until later, but use a similar coding scheme. They are separate postal authorities.

Postcode area	Postcode area name	Code Formation	Number of postcode districts within area
GY	Guernsey	Guernsey	10
JE	Jersey	Jersey	2
IM	Isle of Man	Isle of Man	9

Defunct postcode areas

Glasgow

Glasgow, like London, was divided into compass districts: C, W, NW, N, E, SE, S, SW. When postcodes were introduced, these were mapped into the new G postcode: C1 became G1, W1 became G11, N1 became G21, E1 became G31, S1 became G41, SW1 became G51, and so on. As NW and SE had never been subdivided they became G20 and G40 respectively.

Norwich and Croydon

Norwich and Croydon were used for a postcode experiment in the late 1960s, which was replaced by the current system. The format was of the form NOR or CRO followed by two numbers and a letter, e.g. NOR 07A. They were later changed to CR0 and NR1.

Dublin, Ireland

When Ireland was a part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland a postal district system was introduced in 1917 by the UK government. The letter D was assigned to Dublin. Upon the establishment of the Irish Free State and later, the Republic of Ireland, the Irish government retained the designation and today it forms part of the Eircode system, a postcode format slightly different from the UK format and identifying individual addresses. Since Irish independence, D has never been reassigned as a postcode area in the UK.

Non-geographic postcodes

Types

Some postcode areas do not correspond to geographical areas. They can be - postcode areas with no geographic link and these can for general mail or specific functions ; non-geographic postcode districts or sectors contained within geographic postcode areas ; and specific purpose postcodes.

Postcode area	Purpose
BF	British Forces Post Office
BX	National Non-geographic
GIR	Girobank
XM	Letters to Father Christmas
XX	Parcel returns to LVRs; COVID-19 samples
aa91-aa95	Business Large Volume Receivers in a postcode district
aa96-aa99	Government Large Volume Receivers in a postcode district
aanP	PO Boxes, in some London postcode districts e.g. EC1P, N1P

Numbering of non-geographic postcode districts

For those within geographic postcode areas, the first two numbers can be any number though they are generally larger than the numbers allocated to geographic districts. Some fall within the range 91 to 99 . However, there are many exceptions to this - e.g. American Express has the postcode area BN88; in Glasgow G58 1SB is allocated to National Savings, formerly National Savings Bank, as a mnemonic, though it is located in the G43 postcode district; and in Glasgow G70 is allocated to HMRC which is located in G67. Some are in fact geographic e.g. EH99 1SP for the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh.

BF

The BF postcode area was introduced in 2012 to provide optional postcodes for British Forces Post Office addresses, for consistency with the layout of other UK addresses. It uses the national non-geographic post town "BFPO" and, as of 2012, the postcode district "BF1". Each BFPO number is assigned an inward code, which are grouped as: 0 - Germany, 1 - UK, 2 - Rest of Europe, 3 - Rest of World, 4 - Ships and Naval Parties, 5 - Rest of World, Operations and Exercises, 6 - Rest of World, Operations and Exercises.

BX

The non-geographic postcode area BX has been introduced for addresses which do not include a locality; this allows large organisations long-term flexibility as to where they receive their mail. This postcode area is used by Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC and parts of HM Revenue and Customs like VAT and Pay As You Earn. Lloyds Bank also use BX4. After splitting from Lloyds, TSB Bank uses BX4 7SB, the latter part of which, when written, looks similar to "TSB".

GIR

GIR 0AA is a postcode created for Girobank in Bootle. It remained in use by its successors when Girobank was taken over by Alliance & Leicester and subsequently by Santander UK.

XM

XM4 5HQ is a postcode created for letters sent to Santa Claus or Father Christmas.

XX

The non-geographic postcode area XX is used by online retailers for returns by Royal Mail, and was used for COVID-19 test samples.

Retailer	XX Postcodes
Adidas	XX40 4AA
Amazon	XX10 1DD XX10 1ZZ XX30 1FF XX40 2PP XX50 1DD XX50 9SS XX60 1XX
ASOS	XX10 1AA
Boohoo.com	XX10 1BB
BT Group	XX10 1BT
John Lewis	XX10 1EE XX40 1EE
Marks & Spencer	XX10 1SS
Very	XX20 1DD
musicMagpie	XX10 1FF XX20 1BF XX20 1FF
HP / Cycleon Retail Returns	XX40 1EH XX40 2HH
Nike	XX40 2HH
Zara	XX40 1EJ
Mango	XX40 1EN
Monsoon Accessorize	XX40 1EP
Boden	XX40 1EG
H&M	XX40 1HN
Cainiao	XX40 1RR
Oasis	XX40 1YY
Shein	XX40 3SS
Sony / Cycleon returns	XX40 3WW
Temu	XX40 1ZZ
Sky	XX40 4UU
Biocentre	XX40 4FL
AstraZeneca	XX40 8AZ
Biocentre Scotland	XX50 5FL

Overseas territories

Certain British Overseas Territories introduced single postal codes for their territory or major sub-sections of it. These are not UK postcodes, even though many are formatted in a similar fashion:

Territory

Postcode

Anguilla