Address Types

NENA describes several different types of addresses in their documents:

Civic Address

Any city-style address that includes a house number and a street name is considered a Civic Address.  Civic Addresses include a community name that may or may not be recognized by the USPS or be MSAG valid. Civic Addresses may be used as Postal address if recognized by the USPS.  Civic Addresses may be used as MSAG addresses if they are an exact match to the MSAG address. A rural route delivery address or FPO or APO address is not considered a Civic Address.

Postal Address

Address recognized and used by the USPS (United States Postal Service) for delivery of mail.  A postal address is frequently not a valid address for 9‑1‑1 purposes.

Service Address

The physical location of a (static) subscriber access line.  If available, a Service Address is the recommended address for 9‑1‑1 use. (May be different from the listed address or billing address.)

Subaddress

A component of a Civic Address that provides differentiation between features having a common street name and address number. For example: apartment, suite or lot number.

Relevant NENA Documents
Note: To find and download the document, copy the document number (like NENA-STA-010) from below and search the NENA Standards and Documents page.

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NENA-INF-028, NENA Information Document for GIS Data Stewardship for Next Generation 9-1-1

NENA-STA-004, NENA Next Generation 9-1-1 (NG9-1-1) United States Civic Location Data Exchange Format (CLDXF) Standard

NENA-STA-015, NENA Standard Data Formats for 9-1-1 Data Exchange & GIS Mapping

Postal Addressing Standards, Publication 28