End of Life Notice – AddressBase
The End of Life notice for the AddressBase product, containing key dates, the reasoning behind the product withdrawal and product migration guidance.
Overview
The AddressBase product will become End of Life on 29 November 2027. As of this date, OS will cease to maintain or publish updates to the product.
Key dates
Final publication of the product: Exact date TBC; expected October / November 2027 (Epoch cycle TBC)
Full withdrawal date: 29 November 2027
Why is this happening?
As part of our strategic product roadmap, OS is committed to the evolution of geospatial data and services in order to meet customers’ needs and use cases. Through the Public Sector Geospatial Agreement (PSGA), OS continuously delivers enhancements to the OS National Geographic Database (OS NGD) to provide new, richer data across all market sectors. We’ve improved usability by providing customers with access to the latest OS NGD data enhancements via new systems (the OS Data Hub and APIs) rather than via older and less efficient mechanisms. As a result, some of our existing products will become out of date and reach the end of their life.
The following factors were major drivers behind the decision to withdraw this product:
Declining usage: Usage of the AddressBase product has been declining, with most use cases now met by other OS products, namely the new Royal Mail Address Feature Type available in the OS NGD. Continued support of the AddressBase product is therefore no longer maintainable.
OS product consolidation: The withdrawal of AddressBase is part of a broader initiative to streamline and consolidate our product offering, ensuring our products are sustainable and better aligned with current and future customer needs. AddressBase is in the third set of OS MasterMap Premium Download products to become End of Life, and we're actively working to migrate existing customers to the OS NGD Address offering.
We understand this change will impact customers, and we're committed to providing guidance and support to facilitate a smooth migration to the OS NGD.
What's the product migration path?
We recommend you migrate to using the Royal Mail Address Feature Type as a viable replacement to AddressBase. (This new feature type was released on 30 September 2025 as the sixth feature type in the GB Address and Islands Address Collections of the OS NGD Address Theme.) The new feature type contains data that enables you to access Royal Mail Postcode Address File (PAF) content, alongside Unique Property Reference Numbers (UPRNs) and limited additional attribution, similar to the information contained within AddressBase.
The update frequency for AddressBase is 6-weekly (Epoch cycle), whereas it's up-to-daily for the Royal Mail Address Feature Type.
The primary data source for both products is Royal Mail PAF, allowing PAF-centric customers to continue to use a PAF-centric data model.
Existing AddressBase customers are able to, under dual-running terms, access and use Royal Mail Address Feature Type data during the remaining length of their contract to facilitate their migration over to the OS NGD.
What are the benefits to using OS NGD's Royal Mail Address Feature Type data?
Data is accessed through the OS Data Hub and is available to download from OS Select+Build in two widely adopted and simple to use formats – GeoPackage and CSV (comma-separated values).
AddressBase provides a current view of all Royal Mail PAF addresses that have been matched to the National Land and Property Gazetteer (NLPG) and One Scotland Gazetteer (OSG); the Royal Mail Address Feature Type provides 100% of Royal Mail PAF records, irrespective of a UPRN match.
Royal Mail PAF is ingested, processed and matched to UPRNs up-to-daily for the most current view of UK addresses for the Royal Mail Address Feature Type.
The simplified data model for the OS NGD means there’s no need to be an addressing expert to use the data. Componentised by lifecycle stage, OS NGD Address data allows you to take only the records contained within the feature type/s you're interested in (which is this case will be the Royal Mail Address Feature Type).
Plug and play – OS NGD data is simple and quick to implement as you don't need to pre-process it before you use it.
Rich attribution ensures OS NGD data is straightforward to navigate and query, with classification codes now transformed into plain English for ease of interpretation and application.
Persistent unique identifiers with lifecycle information are available in the OS NGD; the UPRN allows you to traverse the OS NGD themes and unlock value across the database.
The new OS NGD feature type provides a full copy of Royal Mail's PAF product with additional attribution, point geometry for all PAF records and unique metadata describing the relationships between PAF records and Local Authority Address records. It provides you with a single source to acquire a complete view of UK addressing data and information.
What information from AddressBase is not available in the Royal Mail Address Feature Type?
The Royal Mail Address Feature Type does not contain any classification level information. Customers who require primary level classification information are encouraged to use the Built Address Feature Type within the OS NGD as it contains Local Authority sourced addresses and provides premium attribution, including up to quaternary level classification information.
Certain attribution present in AddressBase has been removed, transformed or renamed in the Royal Mail Address Feature Type. Information detailing the differences between the two datasets is available on the AddressBase attribute comparison page.
Further information
This page will be updated periodically with additional support documentation, including specific migration guidance and FAQ answers to support your migration:
Comparison of End of Life Address Products – This page provides a technical summary of things to consider when migrating from AddressBase to the OS NGD's Royal Mail Address Feature Type. It covers data supply, ordering and formats; currency; unique identifiers, and provides a comparison of the attribution of the two products.
Reach out to our support team if you have any concerns or questions.
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