The type of any address indicates whether it serves as the official locator of a property or whether it merely applies to the property as an available but unused address. Addresses belonging to a property are broken down according to the different streets or roadways adjoining the property, and linked to that address according to how officially the location on that side is used as a postal locator.

The address type is applied to the whole numeric range which along one street side of a site, structure, company, or building. Addresses are used to define an object's position along all adjoining streets; for example, a building which adjoins three different streets would have three linked address ranges, usually of different types.

All house numbers within the applicable range along one side of a property necessarily share the same address type. Therefore, if a building's official address is only one number within a range (100 Main Street) but the building occupies a range of house numbers on the same street (100-120 Main Street), then the whole range (100-120) is listed as its main address.