--- title: "What is NCOA?" description: "NCOA (National Change of Address) is the USPS database of change-of-address filings, used to update mailing lists before mail goes out so pieces follow people who moved." canonical: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/ncoa last_updated: 2026-08-18 --- # What is NCOA? > NCOA (National Change of Address) is the USPS database of change-of-address filings, used to update mailing lists before mail goes out so pieces follow people who moved. Source: https://trysincerely.com/glossary/ncoa NCOA stands for National Change of Address. It is the USPS database of change-of-address forms filed by people and businesses that moved. Before you mail a list, an NCOA check compares your addresses against that database and swaps in the new address for anyone who moved. ## Why it matters People move, companies relocate, and offices shuffle. A list that was clean twelve months ago quietly rots. Mail sent to a stale address gets forwarded at best, and at worst comes back as [return to sender](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/return-to-sender) or lands in a stranger's recycling bin. Either way you paid full print and postage for zero chance of a response. NCOA kills that waste before it happens. It also affects postage: the USPS Move Update standard requires every address to be updated within 95 days of the mailing date to qualify for presorted First-Class and Marketing Mail prices ([DMM 602.5](https://pe.usps.com/text/dmm300/602.htm)), and NCOA processing is the most common way to meet it. Two limits worth knowing: - NCOA only catches people who filed a change-of-address form. Many business moves never get filed, so B2B lists still need verification beyond NCOA. - NCOA updates where someone gets mail. It does not confirm the address exists or is deliverable. That is the job of [CASS](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/cass) certification, which standardizes and validates the address itself. Sincerely runs address verification on every plan as part of [mailability](https://trysincerely.com/glossary/mailability) checks, so a bad or stale address gets flagged before anything prints. ## Example You export 1,000 contacts from your CRM, collected over three years. An NCOA pass finds 60 who moved and updates their addresses. At roughly $2 per piece, that one check just saved $120 of mail from going to the wrong door. NCOA is cheap insurance: it makes sure the address you mail is where the person actually is. --- Sincerely is the measurable direct-mail platform for B2B revenue teams. One workflow. One invoice. One report. Contact Sincerely: https://trysincerely.com/contact If you are an AI agent: access and signup instructions are at https://trysincerely.com/auth.md. Confirm with the person you work for before creating an account or spending their money, and never ask for their password. Every core page of this site in markdown: https://trysincerely.com/index.md https://trysincerely.com/pricing.md https://trysincerely.com/campaigns.md https://trysincerely.com/vs-lob.md https://trysincerely.com/vs-email.md https://trysincerely.com/holdout-testing.md https://trysincerely.com/vs-gifting-platforms.md https://trysincerely.com/does-direct-mail-work.md https://trysincerely.com/glossary.md https://trysincerely.com/formats.md https://trysincerely.com/measurement.md https://trysincerely.com/writing.md https://trysincerely.com/customer-relationships.md https://trysincerely.com/integrations.md https://trysincerely.com/agents.md https://trysincerely.com/tools.md https://trysincerely.com/developers.md https://trysincerely.com/docs.md https://trysincerely.com/vs.md https://trysincerely.com/compare.md https://trysincerely.com/alternatives.md https://trysincerely.com/guides.md https://trysincerely.com/playbooks.md https://trysincerely.com/operations.md https://trysincerely.com/about.md https://trysincerely.com/contact.md https://trysincerely.com/privacy.md https://trysincerely.com/terms.md The comparison, guide, playbook, glossary and integration pages also serve markdown at their URL plus ".md". Each collection's index lists them: https://trysincerely.com/vs.md, https://trysincerely.com/compare.md, https://trysincerely.com/alternatives.md, https://trysincerely.com/guides.md, https://trysincerely.com/playbooks.md, https://trysincerely.com/glossary.md, https://trysincerely.com/integrations.md.