Every Place to Change Your Address After Moving (Address Change Checklist)

From my mid-twenties to my mid-thirties, I didn’t stay in any apartment more than two years. In fact, I was sometimes in an apartment for only 10 months.

Every time I moved, I had to remember where to change my addresses. It wasn’t until I had moved one time too many that I finally developed a save-all checklist for changing my address.

It’s hard to remember everywhere you’ll need to do this! In this list, I’m sharing all the places I remember to notify when I move, based on the success of it over the years.

Key Takeaways

• There are lots of places to change your address when you move — these are the most important categories.
• I’ll list these in “general” order of importance; this means I’ll let you know which addresses I tend to change first.
• You can keep coming back to this list, every time you move to a new address.

USPS

An address change with USPS is my #1 thing to tackle when I think of top tips for moving that I’d recommend to someone. Think about how crucial this is!

With USPS, the question is often when to change your address with them, because you get to pick your mail forwarding date. In the past, I have changed my address with USPS when I’ve moved, and set up my mail forwarding to start a day or so before my actual move. This way, straggler mail won’t get left behind for a stranger to receive.

With your USPS address change, be prepared to pay approximately $1 to have the address change take effect, and remember: it’s only for 12 months! This gives you time to change all the address needs below.

Banking and financial institutions

These are the addresses I always work on changing first. They’re the ones that I wouldn’t want getting into the wrong hands because of the privacy in financial topics. Here are a few examples of the banks and institutions that fall into this list (for me):

• My banks (example: Bank of America)
• My credit cards (example: Chase, Capital One)
• Investments: (example: brokerage firms, bond holdings, etc.)
• Online banking or investment apps (Robinhood, crypto holdings apps)
• Lastly, money transfer apps like PayPal and Venmo

Shopping

For frequent shoppers, update your change of address as soon as you can, for places you shop often. That’s right: you wouldn’t want your Amazon package going to your old house or apartment, especially if it’s across the country!

• Amazon, Walmart and other big-box retailers you shop from
• Second-hand retailers or marketplaces like Poshmark or eBay

Delivery services

These services, like the ones for meals, are easiest to forget about because when you sign in, it’s almost easy to think that the app knows where you are. It’s not the case though, and typically you have to manually re-update your home address to get delivery correctly.

• GrubHub, UberEats, Seamless, Doordash and Postmates

Health and medical companies

These are slightly less urgent, although of course, you also don’t want your medical billing getting into the wrong hands. But because medical billing often happens at a delay, you have a dab more time for this.

Remember, though: address changes sometimes take some time to take effect, so act fast, especially if you have reimbursements coming.

• Your doctor’s office
• Dentist’s office
• Health insurance
• Children’s pediatricians and doctors
• Specialized doctors or hospitals that have your home address on file
• Any veterinarians for your pets

Online tech apps

Most tech apps are only using my address information for billing, so these aren’t hugely urgent. Although, they may be a bit more urgent if you have some paper billing coming up or if there are apps that send you products. For me, these include:

• Google
• iCloud
• Dropbox and other storage

Travel

This is a big section of address changing. Some of these places to change my address are only in regard to mail and promotions, but some of these are using my address pretty specifically.

• Rideshares: Uber, Lyft and other pick-up apps
• Airlines: United, Delta, American and JetBlue (and more)
• Train or bus companies
• Car insurance!

Voter registration & Driver’s license

These two government entities will need your change of address, although not super urgently. I usually do this when I’ve completed all the changes above.

• With voter registration, I often get prompted to do this when I change my address with USPS.
• Driver’s licenses: The process will vary if you are changing states, or towns. If you’re moving to a new state, you’ll likely have to go in person for a whole appointment and getting a new license. If you’re staying within the same state, you may be able to do the process online.

Your employer

Don’t forget to tell your employer that you moved! This is usually important because it has tax implications, if you changed states with your move, yet remained at the same job. This happened to both of us when we moved from NYC to New Jersey. Our jobs stayed the same, but our tax codes changed and our employers needed to know.

Subscriptions

These can be anything from meal prep boxes to magazines. The last thing you want is for one of these to show up at your old address — the new tenant or resident will get to enjoy it!

Even if your subscription comes once a month, get ahead of the game by doing this address change when you have time. That way, your subscription will arrive at your new address.

Utilities

This is a separate topic, because it is likely when you move that you’ll have to make calls to each utility company (electric, gas, Internet, water, sewage) and not only order new services, but of course, change your address.

So this section is sort of a double-whammy because it takes the most time, and there’s a lot of work involved.

When we moved from one apartment to another within the same building, we had to spend time calling every single utility to tell them that only our apartment number was changing. We still had to have those utilities shut for the old apartment (downstairs) and tell them to start new service upstairs and with our new address/apartment number (upstairs).