Contact details - data.govt.nz

Contact details must be easy to read and use, this includes phone numbers, email addresses, postal addresses, and street addresses.

Phone and fax numbers

We:

use freephone (rather than phone) for a freephone number (such as 0800, 0508)
put '(NZ only)' after the number, if it is a New Zealand freephone
use freefax rather than free fax
use cellphone, rather than cell-phone or cell phone
use TTY: as the label for any number that provides a text service for the deaf community

For example:

'If you just need some medical advice, you can call a registered nurse on Healthline, freephone 0800 611 116'.
'Freephone: 0800 611 116 (NZ only)'.
'TTY: 0800 111 113'.

We always include a colon after 'phone', 'freephone', 'email' and 'website' - unless used in the middle of a sentence.

For example:

'Phone: +64 4 456 2390'.
'Email: admin@zyxvw.co.nz'.

We don't use bullets for lists of contact details.

For example:

Freephone: 0800 123 4547.
Email: alpha@beta.com.

Not:

Freephone: 0800 123 4547.
Email: alpha@beta.com.

We write phone numbers with non-breaking spaces between the groups of numbers (a non-breaking space keeps the whole number on 1 line – in HTML it's coded as '& nbsp ;'). We're flexible about how the numbers are grouped – we're guided by the agency's style.

We include the plus sign and the international country code with phone numbers.

For example:

+64 4 098 7654.
+64 21 857 345.
+49 89 31 76 07.

Email

We don't include macrons in email addresses, even if the user does, because at this point in time most email clients can't cope with them.

Street addresses

We write Avenue, Corner, Drive, Road, Street, Terrace in full.

We use dashes without spaces between street numbers.

For example:

'112–114 Lambton Quay'.

For street names such as 'The Terrace', 'The Square', 'The Octagon' the 'The' is always capped.

We write a street address as:

[level or floor] [building name]
[street number and name]
[suburb]
[town or city]

We don't include New Zealand at the bottom of street addresses, but we do include the country name if the street address is in another country.

We use macrons in town or city names if the local council does. We are guided by the NZ Address and Postcode Finder for macrons on Māori street names.

NZ Post – Address & Postcode Finder