Addressr

The only open-source, free self-hosted Australian address validation API.

Australian Address Validation, Search and Autocomplete — addressr.io

About

Australian Address Validation, Search and Autocomplete powered by the Geocoded National Address File (G-NAF), Australia's authoritative address database with 15+ million addresses.

• Validated addresses from the official G-NAF source
• Real-time autocomplete with fuzzy matching
• Locality, postcode, and state search for area pickers
• Geocoding to latitude/longitude (optional)
• Self-hosted or SaaS — your choice, your data
• Open source — audit the code, customize as needed

Why Addressr

| | Addressr | Addressify | AddressFinder | Geoscape | Google Maps | | ---------------------------------- | -------- | ---------------------------------------- | ---------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------ | ----------- | | Self-hosted | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Open source | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | Free tier (unlimited, self-hosted) | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | G-NAF data source | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (creator) | ❌ | | Data sovereignty | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | | MCP integration for AI assistants | ✅ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ | ❌ |

Stop paying Google Maps for Australian addresses. Stop locking your data into third-party SaaS. Addressr gives you unlimited address validation on your own infrastructure, or a cheap hosted API if you prefer.

Quick Start

Use the Hosted API

The fastest way to get started. No infrastructure to manage.

1. Get an API key at RapidAPI

2. Search for an address:

   curl "https://addressr.p.rapidapi.com/addresses?q=1+george+st+sydney" \
     -H "x-rapidapi-key: YOUR_KEY" \
     -H "x-rapidapi-host: addressr.p.rapidapi.com"

Use with AI Assistants

Connect Addressr to Claude, Cursor, VS Code Copilot, or any MCP-compatible AI assistant.

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "addressr": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@mountainpass/addressr-mcp"],
      "env": { "RAPIDAPI_KEY": "your-key" }
    }
  }
}

Three tools available: search-addresses, get-address, and health. See @mountainpass/addressr-mcp for full setup instructions.

Self Hosted

Run Addressr on your own infrastructure for full control over your data.

1. Install addressr

   npm install @mountainpass/addressr -g

   NOTE: If you are running windows, you'll need to use wsl

2. Start open search. For example run

   docker pull opensearchproject/opensearch:1.3.20
   docker run -p 9200:9200 -p 9300:9300 -e "discovery.type=single-node" -e "plugins.security.disabled=true" opensearchproject/opensearch:1.3.20

3. Start API server. In a second window run:

   export ELASTIC_PORT=9200
   export ELASTIC_HOST=localhost
   addressr-server-2

4. Setup the env vars for the data loader. In a third window run:

   export ELASTIC_PORT=9200
   export ELASTIC_HOST=localhost
   export ADDRESSR_INDEX_TIMEOUT=30s
   export ADDRESSR_INDEX_BACKOFF=1000
   export ADDRESSR_INDEX_BACKOFF_INCREMENT=1000
   export ADDRESSR_INDEX_BACKOFF_MAX=10000

   1. Optional — enable geocodes by setting the following env vars for the data loader. In the third window run: NOTE: with geocodes enabled, indexing takes much longer and needs much more memory. Only turn them on if you need them. You can always add them later.

   export ADDRESSR_ENABLE_GEO=1
   export NODE_OPTIONS=--max_old_space_size=8196

   2. Optional — limit the addresses to a single state by setting the COVERED_STATES env var for the data loader. This dramatically speeds up indexing. For example, in the third window run:

   export COVERED_STATES=VIC,SA

   Valid values are:

   • ACT
   • NSW
   • NT
   • OT
   • QLD
   • SA
   • TAS
   • VIC
   • WA

5. Run data Loader. In the third window run:

   addressr-loader

6. OK, so we stretched the truth a bit with the "Quick Start" heading. The truth is that it takes quite a while to download, store and index the 15+ million addresses from data.gov.au. So make a coffee, or tea, or find something else to do and come back in about an hour when it's done.

7. Search for an address using the command line

   curl -i http://localhost:8080/addresses?q=LEVEL+25,+TOWER+3

8. An updated G-NAF is released every 3 months. Put addressr-loader in a cron job or similar to keep addressr regularly updated

9. Wire your address form up to the address-server api.

API Endpoints

Addressr exposes a HATEOAS REST API. Start at the root (/) and follow links to discover endpoints. A supplementary OpenAPI 3.x spec is available at /api-docs.

| Endpoint | Purpose | Example | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------- | | GET /addresses?q= | Search and autocomplete addresses | /addresses?q=1+george+st+sydney | | GET /addresses/{pid} | Get full address details (with links to locality, postcode, state) | /addresses/GAOT_717882967 | | GET /localities?q= | Search suburbs/localities by name | /localities?q=lilydale | | GET /localities/{pid} | Get locality details (with links to postcode, state) | /localities/loc9984d8beb142 | | GET /postcodes?q= | Search postcodes (q optional) | /postcodes?q=3140 | | GET /postcodes/{postcode} | Get postcode with associated localities | /postcodes/6798 | | GET /states?q= | Search states/territories (q optional) | /states?q=New | | GET /states/{abbreviation} | Get state details | /states/NSW | | GET /api-docs | OpenAPI 3.x specification | /api-docs | | GET /health | Health check | /health |

How it Works

Additional Settings

| Environment Variable | Value | Description | Default | | -------------------------------------- | ----------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------- | | ELASTIC_PROTOCOL | http | Connect to open search over http | ✅ | | ELASTIC_PROTOCOL | https | Connect to open search over https | | | ELASTIC_USERNAME | blank | Connect to open search without authentication | ✅ | | ELASTIC_USERNAME | non-blank | Connect to open search with the specified username | | | ELASTIC_PASSWORD | blank | Connect to open search without authentication | ✅ | | ELASTIC_PASSWORD | non-blank | Connect to open search with the specified password | | | PAGE_SIZE | 8 | Number or records to return in a search | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN | blank | An Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header is not returned | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_ORIGIN | non-blank | An Access-Control-Allow-Origin response header is returned with the value in the environment variable | | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_EXPOSE_HEADERS | blank | An Access-Control-Expose-Headers response header is not returned | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_EXPOSE_HEADERS | non-blank | An Access-Control-Expose-Headers response header is returned with the value in the environment variable | | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS | blank | An Access-Control-Allow-Headers response header is not returned | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_ACCESS_CONTROL_ALLOW_HEADERS | non-blank | An Access-Control-Allow-Headers response header is returned with the value in the environment variable | | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_HEADER | blank | No gateway auth header enforcement (self-hosted default) | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_HEADER | non-blank | Name of the header the origin requires — set alongside ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_VALUE | | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_VALUE | blank | No gateway auth header enforcement (self-hosted default) | ✅ | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_VALUE | non-blank | Expected value the header must carry — set alongside ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_HEADER | |

Gateway auth header (optional)

By default Addressr does not enforce any proxy authentication — self-hosted npm and Docker deployments work with zero configuration.

If you front Addressr with an API gateway (RapidAPI, Kong, Tyk, Apigee, AWS API Gateway, nginx, Caddy, or your own Cloudflare Worker) and want the origin to reject traffic that bypasses your gateway, set both environment variables to the header name your gateway injects and the shared secret it forwards:

| Variable | Example | Notes | | ---------------------------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------------- | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_HEADER | X-RapidAPI-Proxy-Secret | Header name your gateway forwards | | ADDRESSR_PROXY_AUTH_VALUE | <your-gateway-secret> | Expected value; keep out of version control |

Behaviour:

• Both unset → no enforcement (default).
• Both set → requests without a matching header receive 401 Authentication required.
• Exactly one set → the process exits at startup with a clear error (fails loud to prevent silent bypass).
• /health and /api-docs remain reachable without the header so uptime monitors and gateway OpenAPI imports keep working.

See ADR 024 for the decision record.

NOTE: When adjusting PAGE_SIZE, you should take into account how quickly you want the initial results returned to the user. In many use cases, you want this to be as fast as possible. If you need show more results to the user, you are often better off leaving it a 8 and using the paging links to get more results while you are displaying the first 8.

Why is the default 8 and not 10? Mechanical Sympathy

System requirements

Open Search

opensearch >= 1.2.4 with 1.4GiB of memory

Addressr Loader

Default

Node.js >= 22 with 1GiB of memory

With Geocoding enabled

Node.js >= 22 with 8GiB of memory

Addressr Server

Node.js >= 22 with 64MiB of memory