Formatting An Address for Shipping to Puerto Rico: A Comprehensive Guide
When shipping items from the United States to Puerto Rico, it’s essential to format the address correctly to ensure your package reaches its destination without issue. Puerto Rico addresses are handled similarly to those in the mainland U.S., but with a few key differences that are crucial for successful delivery.
The United States Postal Service (USPS) treats addresses in Puerto Rico as domestic, making the process familiar to anyone who has shipped within the U.S. However, now everything is exactly the same! Some of the changes are slight adjustments, like using the Spanish word “Calle” as opposed to “Street” and putting it in front of the address line, instead of behind it as you would see in an address like:
- Abbreviated: 6555 C. La Paz, San Juan, 00907, Puerto Rico
- Full: 6555 Calle La Paz, San Juan, 00907, Puerto Rico
Formatting A Puerto Rico Address
Here are some things to note when you are evaluating the Puerto Rican address. These might now be obvious if you are used to shipping to the United States…
- Special Characters: Currently, special characters like ñ, é, í, ó, ú, ü, ¿, and ¡ are not supported in many postal applications (USPS and its partners). These should be replaced with their closest Roman alphabet equivalents. Abbreviations are recommended to save space. Tools like Google Translate can assist in making appropriate substitutions.
- State Selection: Choose “Puerto Rico” (even if it’s not technically a state!)
While other address fields are treated the same as they would be when shipping within the US…
- Address Line 1: This should include the house or building number typically followed by “Calle.” For example, “14 Calle Pernal E.”
- Address Line 2: This field is for additional details like apartment, condominium, or building names. An example would be “Villa Lobos”
- Postal Code: The zip code goes in the Postal Code field. PR uses standard 5-digit ZIP codes
Ultimately shipping from the US to Puerto Rico is quite similar to shipping to an address in the United States! It can seem overwhelming because of the territorial status of the location and the shift to Spanish words and letters, but it’s actually not challenging once you learn the basics.