We hold all known UK business and residential addresses on the Postcode Address File – PAF®. PAF® contains over 28 million addresses and 1.8m UK postcodes. PAF® is the most complete and up to date address database in the UK and is recognised as a world class dataset and we intend to keep it that way!

We are committed to validating all 28 million addresses held on the PAF® database every year. This enormous exercise involves all 70,000 Royal Mail Delivery Staff ensuring all delivery points on their routes are correct. They check a printout of their delivery route, which shows every road, house number, house name and business address that they deliver to. Changes are passed to the dedicated Maintenance Team who update PAF® day in, day out.

In addition to this we have a rolling programme of communications activities, including sending over  half a million customer letters every year to ensure business names on PAF are accurate.

Our data products are updated daily or monthly. Monthly products are generally extracted on the third weekend of the month (usually a week earlier in December). Customers can also opt to take our quarterly option, in effect we hold back and last three monthly products for you.

We have a team of over 50 dedicated maintenance staff applying changes to PAF® on a daily basis. 
In an average year, we make 1.25 million changes to PAF®. We summarise changes made to PAF® every month in various tables and formats and post this information online.