Prevent P.O. Boxes

Block P.O. Box and post office box addresses, in several languages.

Many carriers can’t deliver to P.O. Boxes. This rule blocks checkout when Address line 1 or Address line 2 looks like a P.O. Box.

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What it checks

The rule looks for these words in Address line 1 and Address line 2 together. Upper and lower case don’t matter.

Language	Detected words
English	P.O. Box, PO Box, P O Box, POBox, Post Office Box
German	Postfach
French	Boite Postale
Spanish	Apartado, Casilla
Portuguese	Caixa Postal

Address	Result
12 Main Street	Allowed
PO Box 4021	Blocked
Postfach 1234	Blocked

The message appears next to Address line 1 of the address that has the problem.

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Settings

Setting	Description
Countries	All countries, or only orders shipped to Specific countries.
Validate in	Shipping address, Billing address, or both.
Message to display	What the customer sees. English is required.
Rule status	Active, Testing or Deactivated. See Rule status and testing.
Checkout behavior	See Common rule settings.

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Example message

We can't deliver to P.O. Boxes. Please enter a street address.

Only want to block P.O. Boxes for some orders, such as heavy parcels? Use a custom rule with the PO Box address condition.