ZIP Code lookup
zip_lookupThe full record for a postal code — the main location-intelligence tool. Takes a US ZIP Code, a US ZIP+4, a Canadian FSA, a Canadian postal code, or a latitude,longitude pair, and returns the city, state or province, county, whether it spans more than one county, area codes, elevation, metro area and postal details (metro.msa and metro.pmsa are legacy 1999 definitions; the current metro area, the CBSA, comes with census). A ZIP+4 also returns its delivery-segment street ranges, and coordinates reverse-geocode to the code containing the point. Optional enrichments add timezone, census geography, congressional and state legislative districts (for the current year or any TIGER/Line year served), school districts, demographics, Medicare geography and American Community Survey estimates for every release served, all in one schema per year; for Canadian codes, Statistics Canada geography and federal electoral districts (statcan). Use quick_zip instead when only the code and its place are needed — same inputs, about half the payload, no enrichments beyond timezone. Without an API key the core identity fields are returned and everything else is withheld, with each withheld path named.
Tool call template
Replace each placeholder with a value matching the input schema. Only required parameters are included; add optional parameters as needed.
{
"id": 1,
"jsonrpc": "2.0",
"method": "tools/call",
"params": {
"arguments": {
"code": "<code>"
},
"name": "zip_lookup"
}
}Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| code | Yes | A US ZIP Code, ZIP+4, Canadian FSA, or Canadian postal code. For example 90210, 90210-1234, M5V, or M5V 2T6. | |
| api_key | No | Your ZIP-Codes.com API key, only when you cannot send it as the X-Api-Key or Authorization: Bearer header (for example a key bought with buy_credits in this conversation). Leave it out to use the free tier. It is never shown back in a response. | |
| include | No | Enrichments, spelled as the REST API's /v2/zip include flags. Each multiplies the credit cost: base times (1 + number of enrichments). census, cd (congressional district) and state_leg are US Census Bureau data; census_YYYY, cd_YYYY, state_leg_YYYY add boundaries as of a TIGER/Line year (the bare flag answers under `current`, other years under their own key). statcan is Canada only: Statistics Canada geography for a Canadian FSA or postal code, federal electoral districts included, under `statcan` (statcan_YYYY for a census year; census or cd on a Canadian code is answered as statcan). acs_PROFILE is the current American Community Survey release, acs_PROFILE_YYYY an earlier one; every ACS year has the SAME FIELD PATHS, so values compare across years directly. At most 16 ACS profile-years per call (one profile for one year is one); split a larger request into several calls. Accepted: timezone, census, cd, state_leg, school_district, demographics, medicare, statcan, acs_demographic, acs_social, acs_economic, acs_housing; statcan_YYYY for YYYY 2011, 2016, 2021; census_YYYY, cd_YYYY, state_leg_YYYY for YYYY 2010-2026; acs_demographic_YYYY, acs_social_YYYY, acs_economic_YYYY, acs_housing_YYYY for YYYY 2011-2024. A bare flag is its newest year. | |
| acs_years | No | Alias, kept for clients that learned it before include took year flags: ACS release years for the bare acs_ profiles in include (acs_social with acs_years [2015, 2024] is acs_social_2015 plus acs_social). Prefer the year flags in include. Every year has the SAME FIELD PATHS, and the answer comes back keyed by year. At most 16 profile-years per call. 2011 to 2024 (2024 is the current release). |