Postcode & ZIP Code Lookup API worldwide

What it does: Postcode/ZIP lookup in 100+ countries, place geocoding, reverse geocoding and distances, plus UK council/ward/constituency detail.

Who it's for: Delivery, CRM, property, form-filling and location agents.

Price: Pay per event: $0.003 per lookup. Not-found results are not charged. You only pay Apify for what you run; there is no monthly fee for this Actor.

Fast, cheap location lookups for AI agents and apps, from open data, with no API key needed:

• Postcode / ZIP lookup in 100+ countries (US ZIP, UK postcode, Canada, Germany, France, India, Australia, Japan...): place name, state/region, district, coordinates, time zone. Partial codes fall back to the area (e.g. UK outward code, Canada FSA).
• UK extra detail (via postcodes.io): council, ward, parish, parliamentary constituency, LSOA/MSOA, eastings/northings.
• Place geocoding: "Springfield, Illinois, US" → coordinates, population, time zone, postcodes.
• Reverse geocoding: lat/lon → nearest town and nearest postcode.
• Distance between two postcodes, places or points (km and miles).

Input

{"requests": ["90210", {"postcode": "75008", "country": "FR"}, {"place": "Osaka, JP"}, {"lat": -33.86, "lon": 151.2}, {"from": "SW1A 1AA", "to": "Paris"}]}

Postcodes from the US, UK and Canada are auto-detected; for others pass country (ISO code or name).

Pricing

Pay per event: $0.003 per lookup. Not-found results are not charged.

Sources and licences

GeoNames postal codes and cities1000 gazetteer (CC BY 4.0, geonames.org), rebuilt with each Actor build. UK detail from postcodes.io (Ordnance Survey / ONS data, Open Government Licence v3; contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right). Coordinates for postcodes are area centroids, not exact addresses.

Quick example

Input

{
 "requests": [
  {
   "postcode": "SW1A 1AA"
  },
  {
   "postcode": "10001",
   "country": "US"
  },
  {
   "place": "Paris, FR"
  },
  {
   "lat": 48.8584,
   "lon": 2.2945
  }
 ]
}

Output (one dataset item, shortened)

{
 "action": "postcode",
 "query": "SW1A 1AA",
 "results": [
  {
   "place": "Westminster Abbey",
   "admin1": "England",
   "admin2": "Westminster",
   "admin3": null,
   "lat": 51.50101,
   "lon": -0.141563,
   "acc": 1,
   "country_code": "GB",
   "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
   "country": "United Kingdom",
   "precision": "exact",
   "timezone": "Europe/London"
  }
 ],
 "source": "GeoNames postal codes & places (CC BY 4.0); postcodes.io (ONS/OS data, OGL v3)",
 "uk_detail": {
  "postcode": "SW1A 1AA",
  "country": "England",
  "region": "London",
  "admin_district": "Westminster",
  "admin_county": null,
  "admin_ward": "St James's",
  "parish": "Westminster, unparished area",
  "parliamentary_constituency": "Cities of London and Westminster",
  "european_electoral_region": "London",
  "primary_care_trust": "Westminster",
  "lsoa": "Westminster 018C",
  "msoa": "Westminster 018",
  "nuts": "Westminster",
  "incode": "1AA"
 },
 "error": null
}

Use it from AI agents (MCP) and code

• Apify MCP server: add https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=tudorlane/world-postcode-lookup to Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT connectors, VS Code or any MCP client (sign in with Apify OAuth or an API token). The Actor appears as a tool the model can call.
• REST (sync): POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/tudorlane~world-postcode-lookup/run-sync-get-dataset-items?token=YOUR_TOKEN with the input JSON as the body; results come back in the response.
• SDKs / no-code: apify-client (Python/JS), LangChain, LlamaIndex, CrewAI, n8n, Make and Zapier integrations.

FAQ

Exact addresses? No, postcode/area centroids, not rooftop addresses.

Which countries are auto-detected? US, UK and Canada; pass country for others.

What if the source is down? You get an error row and are not charged for it.

Support? Open an issue on the Actor's Issues tab.

---

Keywords: postcode lookup API, ZIP code API, geocoding API, reverse geocoding, UK postcode API, distance between postcodes, MCP tool, Apify Actor, AI agent tool.