# Country, city and postal code checks

Source: https://listplus.ai/en/help/check-and-clean/addresses-and-countries
Last updated: 2026-10-14

ListPlus checks country, city and postal code fields for formatting
problems and, with AI turned on, for whether the values actually make
sense together.

## Format checks (free, automatic)

- **Invalid Country Format** — the value is a placeholder, has numbers or
  invalid special characters, or a 2–3 letter value isn't a real ISO
  country code (checked against the complete ISO 3166-1 list; `UK` and
  `UAE` are accepted).
- **Invalid ZIP/Postal Code Format** — too short, too long, a city name in
  the ZIP field, or a placeholder like `00000`; when a country column is
  present, ListPlus also checks the country's pattern (5 digits for
  Germany, France, Italy, Spain; 4 for Austria, Switzerland, Belgium; 5 or
  5-4 for the US; the UK postcode; and the Dutch, Polish, Canadian,
  Swedish, Portuguese and Irish patterns). A leading zero Excel stripped,
  a `D-` prefix or a space instead of the hyphen gets a **Fix**.
- **Placeholder City** — `remote`, `n/a`, `tbd` or `unknown` in the city
  field.
- **Country in ALL CAPS** / **Country in all lowercase**, **City in ALL
  CAPS** / **City in all lowercase** / **Unusual City Capitalization** (e.g.
  "BErlin"; `Frankfurt (Oder)`, `Freiburg i.Br.` and `Washington, DC` are
  fine).
- **Empty Country Field** / **Empty City Field**.
- **Country Format Inconsistency** — the same country appears in different
  forms across your list (e.g. "US" vs "USA" vs "United States"); it flags
  the less common forms and offers a **Normalize** fix. This opens a review
  window that groups the variants and suggests one standard value per
  group, which you confirm or change before anything is applied. Fix all
  skips it.
- **Phone-Country Mismatch** — the phone's country code doesn't match the
  country column (the postal code is checked by the ZIP format check).

## AI checks (Include AI Analysis, off by default)

Three checks need real-world knowledge an ISO list can't provide, so they
run only when **Include AI Analysis** is turned on:

- **Misspelled Country Name**: catches misspellings in any language and has
  a **Fix** that applies the corrected spelling.
- **Country Name → ISO Code**: flags full country names (e.g. "Germany",
  "Deutschland") and has a **Fix** that converts them to the ISO-2 code
  ("DE"). **Fix all** includes this fix, so if you want to keep full
  country names, don't use Fix all after an AI analysis.
- **City-Country Mismatch** — checks whether the city actually belongs to
  the country in that row (e.g. "Munich" in "France").

Like every check under Include AI Analysis, these are marked in the app as
using credits — see "ai-checks" for how they work and what data is sent.

## Related topics

"[What the Analyze panel checks and how the quality score works](https://listplus.ai/en/help/check-and-clean/quality-checks-overview)" · "[Which checks use AI, and what they see](https://listplus.ai/en/help/check-and-clean/ai-checks)" · "[Fix and Fix all — correcting issues automatically](https://listplus.ai/en/help/check-and-clean/fixing-issues)" · "[Selecting and highlighting rows from checks](https://listplus.ai/en/help/check-and-clean/select-rows-by-checks)".

## FAQ

### Does ListPlus validate ISO country codes?

Yes — the Invalid Country Format check flags a 2–3 letter value that isn't a real ISO country code (all 249 ISO 3166-1 codes are known, UK and UAE accepted), and the AI-powered Country Name → ISO Code check suggests converting a full country name to its ISO-2 code.

### Can ListPlus catch postal codes that don't match the country?

Yes — the Invalid ZIP/Postal Code Format check validates the code against the country column for 22 countries (DE, AT, CH, US, GB, FR, NL, PL, CA, SE, PT, IE and more), offers a Fix for a stripped leading zero or a D- prefix, and reports 00000 or n/a as placeholders.

### Does ListPlus catch a city that doesn't belong to the country in the same row (e.g. "Munich" in "France")?

Yes, with the City-Country Mismatch check — it's AI-powered (any list of cities would always be incomplete), so it only runs when Include AI Analysis is turned on in the Analyze panel.

### What happens if the same country is written differently across my rows ("US", "USA", "United States")?

The Country Format Inconsistency check flags the less common variants and offers a Normalize fix: a review window groups the variants and suggests one standard value per group for you to confirm. Fix all skips it.

### Are the country and city format checks free?

Yes — Invalid Country/ZIP Format, ALL CAPS/lowercase checks, Empty Country/City and Country Format Inconsistency are all free deterministic checks. Only Misspelled Country Name, Country Name → ISO Code and City-Country Mismatch are AI checks, part of the separate Include AI Analysis setting.

### Does the AI-based City-Country Mismatch check actually cost credits?

It's part of Include AI Analysis, which the app marks as using credits, the same as every other check in that setting — see "ai-checks" and "quality-checks-overview" for how that setting is billed.