North Carolina ZIP Codes: Ranges, Prefixes and Major Cities
Whether you are building an address form, cleaning a mailing list or testing shipping rules, it helps to know how ZIP codes work in North Carolina. The state has 1,079 active codes spread across 100 counties.
ZIP code range and prefixes
Every North Carolina ZIP code starts with one of 20 three-digit prefixes. Each prefix points to a sectional center facility, the processing plant that sorts mail for a group of nearby post offices.
- 270
- 271
- 272
- 273
- 274
- 275
- 276
- 277
- 278
- 279
- 280
- 281
- 282
- 283
- 284
- 285
- 286
- 287
- 288
- 289
Types of ZIP codes in North Carolina
| Type | Count | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Standard | 748 | Street delivery areas |
| PO Box | 279 | Post office boxes only |
| Unique | 52 | A single high-volume organization |
ZIP codes for major North Carolina cities
| City | County | Standard ZIPs | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Charlotte | Mecklenburg County | 33 | 28202–28287 |
| Raleigh | Wake County | 15 | 27601–27617 |
| Greensboro | Guilford County | 10 | 27401–27495 |
| Durham | Durham County | 8 | 27701–27713 |
| Fayetteville | Cumberland County | 8 | 28301–28314 |
| Winston Salem | Forsyth County | 8 | 27101–27127 |
| Asheville | Buncombe County | 6 | 28801–28810 |
| Wilmington | New Hanover County | 6 | 28401–28412 |
| Cary | Wake County | 4 | 27511–27519 |
| High Point | Guilford County | 4 | 27260–27265 |
| Apex | Wake County | 3 | 27502–27539 |
| Chapel Hill | Orange County | 3 | 27514–27517 |
| Clayton | Johnston County | 3 | 27520–27528 |
| Gastonia | Gaston County | 3 | 28052–28056 |
| Goldsboro | Wayne County | 3 | 27530–27534 |
Raleigh is the state capital. Larger cities have many ZIP codes because each code follows mail delivery routes, not city limits.
Sample addresses
Olivia Brown
543 Valley St
Wilmington, NC 28412
John Jones
609 River Pl
Apex, NC 27539
Daniel Green
8322 Mill Ct
Chapel Hill, NC 27516
These examples use real city and ZIP pairs with invented street lines, so they are safe for testing and documentation.
Tips for working with these ZIP codes
- Store ZIP codes as text, not numbers, so the format stays consistent across states with leading zeros.
- All of North Carolina is in the Eastern time zone, which keeps scheduling logic simple.
- A quick sanity check: a valid NC ZIP code begins with one of the prefixes listed above.
- City names in addresses are post office names. A suburb may share a ZIP code and city name with a nearby larger town.
Create realistic North Carolina addresses for testing, with real cities, counties and ZIP codes.
Generate North Carolina addresses