National Change of Address (NCOA)

NCOA stands for National Change of Address. The NCOA database is maintained by the USPS and contains address updates for individuals and businesses that have filed a Change of Address request within the past 48 months.

NCOA processing compares your mailing list against this database and updates the address of any contact who has moved and filed a change of address. It does not generate new address information—it simply updates existing records when a USPS-confirmed move has occurred.

NCOA processing provides several important benefits:

Updates moved addresses: Replaces outdated addresses with current USPS-confirmed forwarding addresses for contacts who have relocated.
Flags unresolvable moves: Identifies records where a move has been filed but no valid forwarding address is available, allowing you to remove or suppress those records.
Reduces undeliverable mail: Significantly decreases the number of mail pieces returned because of outdated recipient addresses.
Maintains data recency: This is especially important for mailing lists that have not been refreshed within the past 12 months, when address decay due to residential and business relocations becomes increasingly significant.

An illustration displaying how the USPS' National Change of Address tool allow users to figure out if an address is still current and active. — Illustration showing the usefulness of NCOA.

At Geon Media, every one of our mailing lists is processed using the most current USPS CASS and NCOA data available. This occurs both when we initially receive the data from the list owner and at least once every month thereafter.

In addition, every order is processed through CASS Certification and NCOA Processing again on the day it is delivered to you, ensuring you receive the freshest and most accurate data possible.

While no process can completely eliminate returned mail, we use every available resource to keep it to an absolute minimum.