GetMyPostalCode

Find Your Digital Postcode in Nigeria

Nigeria replaced its six-digit postcode on 1 October 2026 with an eleven-character digital postcode that identifies an individual building. Because it goes down to the building, no location lookup can produce one — this page explains the format and where to get yours.

Your location is only used to find your digital postcode.

Digital Postcode

EK-01-A03-FK-01

Nigeria

Example

The Digital Postcode Format

Format

Eleven characters in five segments (EK-01-A03-FK-01)

Example

EK-01-A03-FK-01

A Nigerian digital postcode is eleven characters in five segments, written canonically with hyphens: EK-01-A03-FK-01. NIPOST also displays it with spaces, EK 01 A03 FK 01, and accepts it compact and in any case on input, so ek01a03fk01 is the same code.

Each segment names a smaller area than the one before it, running State, local government area, district, area, building. The last two digits are the building itself, which is what makes this a building-level code rather than an area code.

The numeric segments are zero-filled and never 00 — they run from 01 to 99. That is a useful validation rule, and it is the only checkable constraint in the format beyond the segment shapes themselves.

What Each Part of a Digital Postcode Means

Read left to right, each part of a Nigeria digital postcode narrows the destination down.

Breakdown of each part of a Nigeria digital postcode
PartIdentifiesWhat it means
Segment 1 (AA)StateTwo letters identifying the state or the Federal Capital Territory. EK is Ekiti.
Segment 2 (99)Local government areaTwo digits, zero-filled, from 01 to 99, identifying the LGA within that state. Never 00.
Segment 3 (H77)DistrictThree alphanumeric characters narrowing to a district within the LGA, such as A03.
Segment 4 (BB)AreaTwo letters designating a micro-area within the district, such as FK.
Segment 5 (55)BuildingTwo digits, 01 to 99, identifying the individual building as a delivery point tied to geographic coordinates.

How digital postcodes work in Nigeria

Nigeria had a six-digit postcode for decades and it never worked the way a postcode is supposed to. The reason was not the code but the thing underneath it: street names and house numbers are absent across much of the country, so there was nothing for six digits to resolve to. The code pointed at a broad area and the rest of the job was done by landmarks, phone calls and local knowledge.

The National Digital Alphanumeric Postcode System, which replaced it on 1 October 2026, attacks that problem directly rather than working around it. Instead of dividing the country into delivery areas and hoping addresses exist inside them, it assigns a code to every addressable building, derived from GIS and satellite data and tied to coordinates. A building that has never had a street number now has an identifier of its own.

That is why the code is eleven characters rather than six. Naming every building in a country of this size takes far more combinations than six digits can provide, and the five-segment structure keeps the result readable: you can see the state in the first two characters without decoding anything.

The code belongs to the building, not to the person in it. Moving house means using a different code; the one you left behind stays with the property. That is the same model Ireland chose for Eircode and the opposite of a system where a code describes a round or a delivery area.

Finding and sharing a code is free, through the official portal or the NIPOST Postcode app. Worth knowing before you rely on it: nationwide coverage was still being completed after the October launch, with a December 2026 target, and the lookup itself has been changing — address search on the website was narrowed to postcode-only search while it was refined. If a code for your building is not there yet, that is the rollout rather than a mistake on your part.

Why a location lookup cannot give you your digital postcode

This is the honest limit of this tool in Nigeria, and it is worth stating before anything else on the page is useful to you.

A reverse geocode answers the question "what postal code covers this point?". The digital postcode does not cover a point — its last segments identify one specific building out of all the buildings around it. Answering that from a position would mean knowing which building you are standing in, to a precision no consumer device reports and no open map data records for most of Nigeria.

There is a second problem on top of the first. The open data behind reverse geocoding, including OpenStreetMap, carries the old six-digit codes at best. NDAPS is five weeks old at the time of writing and its data is held by NIPOST, not published into the open datasets this kind of lookup reads. So a lookup here will return either nothing or a retired six-digit code, and neither is your digital postcode.

The page is here because the explanation is worth having, not because the button will answer the question. For your actual code, use the official sources below.

Where to get your digital postcode

Two official routes, both free, and they are the only reliable ones.

The NIPOST portal at postcode.gov.ng has a "Find my postcode" option. The NIPOST Postcode app, listed on the official site for Android and iOS, does the same and lets you save a code so you are not re-finding it each time.

Treat anything else with suspicion. A system this new attracts lookalike sites, and a postcode that identifies your building is exactly the kind of detail worth not handing to an unofficial one. If a service asks you to pay to find your own code, it is not NIPOST — finding, saving and sharing a code on the official platform costs nothing.

If your building is not in the system yet, the rollout was still being completed after the October launch. That is a waiting problem rather than something you can fix from your end.

What happened to the six-digit code

The six-digit numeric postcode — 100001 for part of Lagos, and so on — was replaced on 1 October 2026. You will still see it everywhere: in old records, in address databases, in checkout forms built before the change, and in most international shipping software.

What no source consulted could confirm is a formal end date for using it. Replaced is not the same as invalid on a given day, and NIPOST has not published a cut-off that could be quoted here. The practical reading is that the six-digit code is the legacy system, the digital postcode is the current one, and anything official should use the current one.

For a form that will not accept eleven characters, which is most of them for now, the old six-digit code is what the form was built for and is the pragmatic answer. For anything where accuracy matters — a delivery you care about, an official record, a bank form — give the digital postcode and the written address together, and expect to explain the format to whoever receives it.

If you build software that holds Nigerian addresses, the change is a real migration rather than a field-width increase. Eleven characters, letters as well as digits, and a code per building rather than per area, is not something a six-digit numeric column can absorb.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can this tool give me my Nigerian digital postcode?

No. The digital postcode identifies an individual building, which no location lookup can resolve from a device position, and the NDAPS data is not in the open datasets reverse geocoding reads. Use the official NIPOST portal at postcode.gov.ng or the NIPOST Postcode app.

What does each part of the code mean?

Five segments, largest to smallest: two letters for the state, two digits for the local government area, three alphanumeric characters for the district, two letters for the area, and two digits for the building. EK-01-A03-FK-01 is the shape.

Is my old six-digit postcode still valid?

It was replaced on 1 October 2026, and NIPOST has not published a formal end date for its use. Treat it as the legacy system: fine for an old form that cannot accept eleven characters, not the right answer for anything official.

Does the postcode belong to me or to the building?

To the building. It is tied to coordinates, so it stays with the property when you move and you take on the code of wherever you go next.

Does it cost anything to find my code?

No. Finding, saving and sharing a digital postcode on the official NIPOST platform is free. Any site charging for it is not NIPOST.

My building has no code yet. What now?

Nationwide coverage was still being completed after the October 2026 launch, with a December 2026 target. A missing building is the rollout catching up rather than an error you can correct.

Keep Reading