Address validation checks a shipping address against authoritative postal data before a shipment is rated or a label is printed. Descartes Pacejet returns the corrected, standardized address along with the delivery point type, so a bad address is fixed at order entry or at the Shipping screen rather than on a carrier invoice weeks later.
Pacejet offers three validation methods: Descartes, UPS®, and FedEx®. Descartes address validation is the recommended method, because one check covers every shipment no matter which carrier wins the rate.
Address Validation in Pacejet
Validation compares the submitted address to postal reference data and returns a corrected version, a standardized format, and a verified flag. Correction charges almost always come from small address errors. Validation catches them before the shipment is built.
The defects validation resolves most often are:
A street name misspelled or abbreviated in a way the carrier cannot resolve.
A ZIP code that does not match the city.
A delivery point that is residential rather than commercial.
A postal code or province formatted incorrectly on an international address.
A missing apartment, suite, unit, or dock number.
The Cost of a Bad Address
A carrier bills an address correction after the package is already in its network, and the charge is rarely discounted in a negotiated agreement. Parcel carriers apply the fee per package, so a wrong address on a five-box order is billed five times.
Carrier |
Address correction fee |
Effective |
|---|---|---|
UPS |
$25.25 per correction, with fuel surcharge applied on top |
December 22, 2025 |
FedEx |
$25.50 per correction, across Express, Ground, and Home Delivery |
January 5, 2026 |
Freight is billed differently. Less than truckload (LTL) carriers charge once per shipment and rate the charge on weight against a published minimum and maximum. Redelivery to a corrected address runs from $85 to $900 depending on the carrier and the weight, and a reconsignment adds an administrative fee plus a re-rate of the linehaul. One freight correction can cost more than a month of parcel corrections.
Residential surcharges are a second, quieter cost. When a residential delivery point is rated as commercial, the package still arrives, but the surcharge lands on the invoice instead of in the quote given to the customer. Validation returns the delivery point type before rating, so the surcharge is priced correctly the first time.
Validation Methods
The Address Validation Default Method application setting controls which service Pacejet calls. Descartes is the recommended selection. UPS and FedEx remain available for customers who prefer to keep using them.
Descartes Address Validation
Descartes address validation is carrier independent. One call validates the address itself, so the result is the same whether the shipment goes parcel with UPS, FedEx, or a regional carrier, or moves LTL. That matters for rate shopping, because at the moment an address is validated the winning carrier is usually not yet known.
It also covers international addresses more broadly than the carrier options do. A Canadian address submitted with a spelled-out province and an incorrect postal code comes back with the province code and the correct postal code applied.
Messages stay consistent across carriers. Because one service answers every request, the message a shipper sees for a bad address does not change with the carrier selected on the shipment.
UPS and FedEx Address Validation
The UPS and FedEx methods call that carrier's own validation service. Both remain available and work as they do today, and existing configurations are unchanged until an administrator selects a different method.
Two limits apply. A carrier's validation service is provided for the shipments you tender to that carrier, so using one carrier's service across all of your shipping usually means negotiating separate terms. The FedEx method also requires a value in the second address line and a two-character state or province code, so an address without a suite or unit number, or one carrying a full state name, is returned unvalidated.
Warning: A shipping account is required if you use UPS or FedEx methods. The Descartes method works without any specific carrier account.
Validation Results
A validation response returns four things your team and your systems can act on.
A corrected delivery point: the standardized street, the filled-in ZIP+4, and a consistent format. "1 Aple Pk Wa, Cupertino, CA 95012" comes back as "1 APPLE PARK WAY, CUPERTINO, CA 95014-0642".
The delivery point type: residential or commercial, returned before rating so the residential surcharge can be priced into the quote.
A verified flag: a plain indicator of whether the address passed, so an order can be stopped, flagged, or allowed to continue without a person interpreting a carrier error code.
Result codes: detail on what changed and what could not be resolved, such as a missing sub-premise number or an address that matched more than one record.
Note: No validation service catches every problem. An address can be correctly formatted and still be the wrong address, and some corrections are triggered by carrier-side data. Validation resolves the large majority of corrections, which come from formatting, missing unit numbers, and ZIP or city mismatches.
Validation Entry Points
Validation runs in two places. The earlier it runs, the less it costs to fix the address.
Order Entry Through the Pacejet API
The Pacejet REST API exposes an AddressValidation endpoint. Post an address and get a verified address back. The call can run from a shopping cart, an ERP order entry screen, a customer service application, or anywhere else an address is entered.
This is the placement worth building if your integration allows it. An address corrected at order entry costs nothing. The same address corrected after the carrier scans the package costs $25.25.
The Rate & Ship Screen
For addresses that reach the warehouse unvalidated, the Rate & Ship screen has a Verify Address action in the Ship To section. The current address and the suggested address display side by side, along with the residential flag returned with the result. Clicking Accept Changes writes the corrected address to the shipment.
Shipment tags mark the outcome. An AV-Review or AV-Error tag identifies the shipments a person should look at, so exceptions surface instead of sitting in the queue. For the full procedure, see Using Address Validation.
Manual vs. Auto Correct
The Address Correction Default Method setting controls what happens to a suggested address. Auto Correct applies the suggestion to the Ship To address automatically, and Manual runs validation but leaves the address unchanged until a user accepts it.
Address Validation Selection
Pacejet Release 26.6 introduced Descartes address validation as a selectable method and consolidates the address validation settings.
No manual setup: the service is registered automatically on upgrade. An administrator selects Descartes as the Address Validation Default Method and it is live.
USPS customers are migrated: USPS is no longer a validation method. Customers validating through USPS are moved to the Descartes option, with no configuration changes required on their end.
Settings are consolidated: a single logging option replaces the four separate carrier logging options, and the license key and service endpoint are managed in one place rather than per carrier.
Existing configurations are unchanged: UPS and FedEx validation continue to work as they do today until an administrator changes the method.
Getting Started
Address validation requires the AddressVerify license and the Address Validation Enabled application setting. For license activation and the four application settings, see Address Validation - Setup. For the day-to-day procedure on the Rate & Ship screen, see Using Address Validation.
For help selecting or configuring a validation method, contact Descartes Customer Support.