Address Validator & Parser — Normalize Bulk Addresses

Validate, parse, and normalize postal addresses worldwide. Extract components (street, city, state, ZIP), standardize formatting (USPS for US), validate postal codes, and detect address types — all with zero external API calls.

Why Use This Actor

Address validation normally costs $2-5 per 1,000 lookups (SmartyStreets, Google Address Validation, Lob) and requires API keys. This actor uses open-source parsing logic and postal code format databases, running entirely on Apify's infrastructure.

Feature	Ours	SmartyStreets	Google	Lob
Price per 1K	$11.72 plus start event	$4.00	$5.00	$3.00
Batch processing	✅ 100K+	Limited	1 at a time	API only
Free-form parsing	✅	✅	✅	❌
International support	✅ 50+	✅	✅	US only
ZIP code validation	✅	✅	✅	✅
No API key needed	✅	❌	❌	❌

Honest limitation: This actor performs format validation and parsing, not USPS CASS-certified deliverability verification. It confirms addresses are well-formed — but does NOT verify a specific address is a real, deliverable location.

How to Use

Zero-config: just provide an array of address strings.

{
  "addresses": [
    "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC 20500",
    "123 Main St Apt 4B, New York, NY 10001",
    "10 Downing Street, London, SW1A 2AA, UK"
  ]
}

Accepts free-form strings or structured objects:

{
  "addresses": [
    {
      "street": "123 Main St",
      "city": "Chicago",
      "state": "Illinois",
      "zip": "60601",
      "country": "US"
    }
  ]
}

Input Configuration

Parameter	Type	Default	Description
addresses	array	One demo address	List of addresses (strings or objects). Max: 100,000
defaultCountry	string	"US"	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 fallback country code
validateZipCode	boolean	true	Validate ZIP/postal code format
normalizeFormat	boolean	true	Normalize to country-standard format
detectAddressType	boolean	false	Detect residential/commercial/po_box
abbreviateState	boolean	true	Convert "California" → "CA"
standardizeStreetSuffixes	boolean	true	"Street" → "ST", "Avenue" → "AVE"
includeOriginal	boolean	true	Include original input in output
onlyInvalid	boolean	false	Filter to only invalid addresses
outputFormat	string	"components"	components, single_line, or both

Output Format

Each address produces one result:

{
  "original": "123 Main St Apt 4B, New York, NY 10001",
  "isValid": true,
  "confidence": 0.95,
  "normalized": "123 MAIN ST APT 4B, NEW YORK, NY 10001, US",
  "components": {
    "street": "123 Main St Apt 4B",
    "houseNumber": "123",
    "streetName": "MAIN",
    "streetSuffix": "ST",
    "unit": "4B",
    "unitType": "APT",
    "city": "NEW YORK",
    "state": "NY",
    "stateAbbreviation": "NY",
    "zipCode": "10001",
    "countryCode": "US"
  },
  "addressType": "residential",
  "validation": {
    "hasStreet": true,
    "hasCity": true,
    "hasState": true,
    "hasZip": true,
    "zipFormatValid": true,
    "stateValid": true,
    "issues": []
  },
  "checkedAt": "2026-03-11T12:00:00.000Z"
}

Confidence Score

Range	Meaning
0.90 – 1.00	All components present, ZIP valid, state valid
0.75 – 0.89	All components present, minor issues
0.50 – 0.74	Missing one non-critical component
0.25 – 0.49	Missing multiple components
0.00 – 0.24	Unparseable or severely malformed

Validation Issue Codes

Code	Severity	Description
MISSING_STREET	error	No street address detected
MISSING_CITY	error	No city detected
MISSING_STATE	error	No state/province detected
MISSING_ZIP	error	No postal code detected
INVALID_ZIP_FORMAT	error	ZIP doesn't match country format
INVALID_STATE	error	State not recognized
ZIP_STATE_MISMATCH	warning	ZIP code doesn't match state
PO_BOX_DETECTED	info	Address is a PO Box

Tips and Advanced Usage

• CRM cleanup: Set onlyInvalid: true to filter a mailing list to problematic records only
• USPS formatting: Default settings apply USPS-standard formatting (uppercase, abbreviated state and suffixes)
• International batches: Set defaultCountry to your most common country for better detection
• Large batches: Process up to 100,000 addresses in a single run — all in-memory, no external calls

Pricing

$11.72 per 1,000 addresses validated ($0.01172 per address) using the live Store pricing entry and address-validated event. A one-time actor-start event is scheduled at $0.01563 per run.

Platform usage handling follows the actor's live Store pricing entry.

Use Case	Addresses	Cost
E-commerce daily orders	200	$2.36
CRM cleanup	5,000	$58.62
Mailing list prep	50,000	$586.02

FAQ

Does this verify the address actually exists (CASS certification)?

No. This actor validates format and structure — it does NOT confirm the address is a real, deliverable location. For CASS certification, use SmartyStreets or Lob.

What countries are supported?

US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Australia, Japan, and 40+ more. ZIP code format validation covers 25 countries.

Can I input free-form addresses?

Yes. Free-form strings like "1600 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington DC 20500" are parsed automatically.

How does it handle apartment numbers?

Unit formats handled: "Apt 4B", "#4B", "Suite 200", "Unit 3", "Floor 12".

What's the difference between this and SmartyStreets?

SmartyStreets is CASS-certified (confirms real addresses via USPS database). This actor validates address format and structure without external API calls — 3x cheaper for format validation use cases.

Does it correct typos?

No fuzzy matching. Typos are flagged with POSSIBLE_TYPO but not auto-corrected to avoid false corrections.

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