G-NAF explained: what it can (and can’t) do

11 July 2026 · 5 min read

G-NAF, the Geocoded National Address File, is the authoritative, openly-licensed index of Australian physical addresses, maintained by Geoscape Australia and refreshed quarterly. It’s what WattleAddr is built on.

What G-NAF is great at

• Confirming an address exists and is spelt/formatted correctly
• Returning clean, structured components (unit, street, locality, state, postcode)
• Providing a latitude and longitude for the address
• Powering fast, accurate type-ahead

What G-NAF is not

G-NAF tells you an address exists and where it is, not whether Australia Post will deliver mail there. Deliverability, DPID barcodes and AMAS certification for bulk-mail discounts come from Australia Post’s PAF, a separate product. We’re deliberately clear about this boundary.

Staying current

Geoscape releases a new G-NAF roughly every quarter. WattleAddr re-ingests each release and swaps it in with zero downtime, so your lookups reflect the latest national dataset, and every response tells you which release it came from.

Because G-NAF is open data, we can offer it at fair, honest prices, with attribution to Geoscape, as the licence requires.