In Ukraine, Addresses Run from Street to Oblast, and Postal Codes Have Five Digits

At the bottom of the official website of the Kyiv City State Administration, the building’s address is written as “вул. Хрещатик, 36, м. Київ, 01001.” The street name, the building number, the city name, and then a five-digit number. Where a Japanese address starts from the prefecture and works down to the smallest unit, a Ukrainian address goes from the smallest unit up to the largest. How to write an address is set out in the postal service rules adopted by Ukraine’s Cabinet of Ministers. This article reflects those rules and Japan Post’s guidance as confirmed on 23 September 2026.

The elements of an address set out in the regulations

Ukraine’s “Rules for the Provision of Postal Communication Services” (Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 270 of 5 March 2009; fully revised by Resolution No. 1071 of 10 October 2023; most recently amended by Resolution No. 1147 of 8 October 2024) lists the following information to be attached to mail, in clause 32:

• The name of the recipient and sender. For an individual: surname, given name, and patronymic (if any)
• The name of the street (including avenues, boulevards and lanes), the building number, and the room/office number
• The name of the locality (city, town or village), the raion (район), and the oblast (область)
• The postal code
• The destination country

For registered mail and postal money orders, the same clause also lists the sender’s and recipient’s phone numbers (excluding postcards, letters with no declared value, and mail for the visually impaired). However, the same clause also states that which items of information are required is decided by the postal operator.

Clause 34 states that for letters and postcards, the recipient’s name and address are written in the bottom right, and the sender’s name and address in the top left (or at the top of the back of the envelope). Clause 35 provides that the address must be accurate and complete, names must not be abbreviated, no symbols unrelated to the address may be written, and that for domestic mail the address must be written in the state language (Ukrainian).

The address quoted at the start of this article used the abbreviations “вул.” (вулиця, street) and “м.” (місто, city). Real-world addresses do sometimes use abbreviations, but for domestic mail the rules themselves call for none.

Words used in Ukrainian addresses

When writing the words that appear in an address in the Latin alphabet, the transliteration table set out in Cabinet of Ministers Resolution No. 55 of 2010 is applied. The rules of that table, and the background to place-name spelling, are covered in the day “Kiev” became “Kyiv,” and how Ukrainian place-name spelling is decided.

In the transliteration table, й is rendered as i except at the start of a word, and ь (the soft sign) is not written at all. That is why район becomes raion and область becomes oblast. Applying this table to the proper nouns in the address quoted at the start of this article gives Khreshchatyk (Хрещатик) and Kyiv (Київ).

Addressing mail when sending from Japan

For addresses on international mail, Japan Post asks that, to ensure reliable delivery, they be written in principle using Roman letters and Arabic numerals. Japan Post’s guidance for overseas greeting cards calls for writing, in this order: the name; the building name and room number; the street number and street name; the city, region and state/oblast name; the postal code; and the country name, with the country name always in capital letters. It also states that the address should be written in English, French, or the language of the destination.

There is also a sample from the Ukrainian side. The Ukrainian edition (July 2023) of the addressing guidance the Universal Postal Union (UPU) compiles for each member country states that the postal code is written “as five digits below the locality name or oblast name,” and that the address is written left-aligned in the bottom right of the envelope. One of the samples it gives is as follows.

The Latin spelling in this sample does not match the form produced by applying the transliteration table above. For example, applying the table to the oblast name gives “Chernihivska.” It is safer to assume that there is no single fixed Latin spelling for an address.

The surest approach is to have the recipient write out the address themselves, in both Ukrainian and Latin letters. The Latin spelling a person actually uses can differ from the form produced by mechanically applying the transliteration table.

For international mail sent from within Ukraine, clause 37 of the same regulations provides that the recipient’s address is written in Latin letters and Arabic numerals, with the name of the destination country written once more in Ukrainian, in capital letters.

Whether Japan Post is currently accepting mail addressed to Ukraine, and which categories of mail can be sent, is not covered in this article — check Japan Post’s “Country/Region Acceptance Status” page (https://www.post.japanpost.jp/service/send/oversea/information/overview.html) before sending anything.

The postal code is a five-digit number

Ukraine’s Law “On Postal Communication” (Law No. 2722-IX of 3 November 2022) defines a postal code (поштовий індекс) as “a numerical code for a postal address that represents a postal facility, including a village with no post office.” As the Universal Postal Union’s guidance states, the Ukrainian postal code is a five-digit number.

The postal operator Ukrposhta (Укрпошта) provides a page for looking up postal codes and post offices (index.ukrposhta.ua).

Ukrposhta and Nova Poshta

Ukraine does not have only one operator carrying mail and parcels.

Ukrposhta is the joint-stock company “Укрпошта.” Order No. 405 of the Ministry of Infrastructure, dated 14 June 2013, designates this company as the “designated operator” that carries out the postal duties and obligations arising from Universal Postal Union (UPU) agreements (in effect as of 23 September 2026). Article 17 of the Law on Postal Communication grants only the designated operator the right to deliver domestic letters and postcards up to 50 grams, issue postage stamps, install mailboxes, and the like.

Nova Poshta (Нова пошта) is a private delivery company. According to the company’s own account, it was founded in 2001 and operates 24,000 parcel lockers (поштомат) across Ukraine. Per the company’s guidance, documents and parcels up to 30 kilograms arriving from abroad can be picked up at a branch, delivered to an address, or collected from a parcel locker, and picking up at a branch requires showing identification and the waybill number.

The difference in how mail is received also shows up in how the address is written. Clause 33 of the postal regulations states that when mail is to be held for pickup (до запитання) rather than delivered to the home, or addressed “to a branch” (до відділення), the address should include, after the name, a notation such as “до запитання,” the name of the locality/raion/oblast, the name of the receiving postal facility, the postal code, and the country. Nova Poshta handles parcels using its own waybill (експрес-накладна); the company explains that once the recipient is notified of arrival, the procedure differs depending on whether they choose to pick it up at a branch, have it delivered to their address, or collect it from a locker. Asking the recipient directly is the fastest way to find out which operator, and which pickup method, is best.

Street names change

In Ukraine, the names of localities and streets have been revised under laws including Law No. 3005-IX of 21 March 2023, “On the Condemnation and Prohibition of Propaganda of Russian Imperial Policy in Ukraine and the Decolonization of Toponymy” (the background is covered in the place-name article mentioned above). Article 13 of the Law on Postal Communication requires local government bodies and municipalities to notify the designated operator when the name of a locality or street changes, or a new address is assigned.

An address on an old business card, or in an email from a few years ago, may now go by a different name. Before sending anything, check the current address with the recipient.