Australia Post 4-State

The Australia Post 4-State barcode encodes a delivery point identifier: an 8-digit number Australia Post assigns to every delivery address in Australia. Sorting machines read it to route mail without reading the address.

Decode one

Scan or paste a barcode and see every part of it.

Make one

Generate a valid barcode from fields.

Where you’ll see it

Business mail in Australia, printed near the address to qualify for barcoded mail prices.
Reply paid mail.

Anatomy

Each bar is in one of four states:

Part	What it is
Start bars	Mark the start
Format control code	Says which kind of barcode this is
Delivery point identifier (DPID)	The 8-digit number for the address
Customer information	Optional data the sender adds, in the longer formats
Error correction	12 bars of Reed–Solomon parity
Stop bars	Mark the end

There are three lengths:

Format	Bars	Customer information
Standard Customer Barcode	37	None
Customer Barcode 2	52	16 bars
Customer Barcode 3	67	31 bars

Error correction

The 12 error correction bars hold four Reed–Solomon parity symbols. They let a scanner correct damaged bars, not just detect them, which is unusual for a postal barcode.

USPS Intelligent Mail and Royal Mail 4-State: 4-state barcodes from other postal services that look similar but encode differently.

Gotchas

The DPID isn’t an address. Look it up against Australia Post’s address data to get the address back.

Scanning it in your app

ScanField("Mailpiece", text: $mailpiece)
    .barcodeTypes(.postal)

Reference

Retail (GTIN)

Logistics and industrial

2D

Postal

Documents

Decode one

Make one

Where you’ll see it

Anatomy

Error correction

Gotchas

Scanning it in your app

Specification

Decode one

Make one

​Where you’ll see it

​Anatomy

​Error correction

​Variants and related types

​Gotchas

​Scanning it in your app

​Specification

Where you’ll see it

Anatomy

Error correction

Variants and related types

Gotchas

Scanning it in your app

Specification