How to address letters to Slovakia?

If you are writing a letter to someone in Slovakia, then it is important to write the address correctly. There are two things that are probably more or less different from the form used in other countries.

Firstly, the name of the street or square comes before the number of the house. So correct are: "Hviezdoslavova 15", "Hlavne namestie 4", "nam. Alexandra Dubceka 1" or "ulica Osloboditelov 22". The Slovak name for street is "ulica" (shortened "ul.") and for square "namestie" (shortened "nam."). The word for street or square does not always have to appear.

Secondly, the postal code (PSČ, PSC, Poštové smerové číslo) is composed of 5 digits. The first digit is one of 8 (Bratislava), 9 (Western Slovakia) and 0 (Eastern Slovakia). This is a heritage of the Czechoslovak federation, where 1 was Prague, 2-5 rest of Bohemia and 6-7 Morava.

You can find the PSČ for any town, village and street on the website of the Slovak Post: www.slposta.sk/index.php?id=266. Just enter the town/village and the street (optionally) and you will get the whole list of matching streets.

Since the whole search engine has not been entirely translated into English, there may be some Slovak words that appear:

• "číslo" - number
• "čísla" - numbers
• "nepárne čísla" - odd numbers
• "párne čísla" - even numbers
• "ostatné čísla" - other numbers
• "pozri ..." - "see ..."

In most very small villages, there is no post office. In this case, the "office of delivery" is given. Please put it also into the address if it is different from the town's name.

The whole address should then look something like:

Firstname Lastname
Street Number
Town
PSC Office of delivery
Slovak Republic

As an example of an address of Mr. Peter Kovac living in the Hviezdoslavova street, house number 23 in Bratislava:

Peter Kovac
Hviezdoslavova 23
81101 Bratislava
Slovak Republic

And his grandmother Hortenzia Kovacova from the small village Horne, house number 61 near a slightly larger village Dolne somewhere in Eastern Slovakia:

Hortenzia Kovacova
Horne 61
08121 Dolne
Slovak Republic