Orleans MA ZIP Codes: 02653, 02643 and 02662 Explained

Orleans, Massachusetts uses three ZIP codes: 02653, 02643 and 02662. The first is the standard ZIP code and carries street delivery for the whole town. The other two belong to East Orleans and South Orleans, and both are PO Box ZIP codes tied to village post offices rather than to residential mail routes.

That difference matters more than most ZIP code listings let on. A house can sit in the East Orleans or South Orleans part of town and still take 02653 on its street address, because a PO Box ZIP code carries no street delivery of its own. Postal identity and neighborhood are two separate things in Orleans, and treating them as one is the most common addressing mistake people make here.

Orleans MA ZIP Codes at a Glance

Orleans has one standard ZIP code and two PO Box ZIP codes. All three sit in Barnstable County on the Lower Cape.

• 02653, Orleans. Standard ZIP code. Handles street delivery across the town and PO Boxes at the Orleans Post Office. This is the ZIP code for nearly every physical address in Orleans.
• 02643, East Orleans. PO Box ZIP code. Serves PO Boxes at the East Orleans Post Office on Main Street.
• 02662, South Orleans. PO Box ZIP code. Serves PO Boxes at the South Orleans Post Office on South Orleans Road.

The word "standard" is a postal classification, not a ranking. A standard ZIP code has carrier routes, city and rural delivery, and a delivery boundary you can draw on a map. A PO Box ZIP code has none of that. It exists to route mail to a wall of numbered boxes inside one building.

Orleans is unusual in that two of its three ZIP codes fall into the second category. Most towns of this size have one ZIP code and no village codes at all.

Which Orleans MA ZIP Code Should You Use for a Street Address?

Use 02653. Every residential and commercial street address in Orleans, including addresses in the East Orleans and South Orleans neighborhoods, is delivered through the standard Orleans ZIP code.

Reserve 02643 and 02662 for mail going to a PO Box at those two village post offices. Writing 02643 on a street address invites a delivery delay, and some address validation systems will reject it outright.

Here is the order to work in when you are not sure:

1. Start with 02653 for any street address in Orleans.
2. Use 02643 or 02662 only when the recipient has given you a PO Box number at the East Orleans or South Orleans post office.
3. Check the exact five digit code and the ZIP+4 add on through the USPS ZIP Code Lookup before you print anything at volume or submit a legal document.

This matters in practical, boring ways. Insurance quotes, vehicle registration, voter records, utility accounts, school enrollment and package tracking all key off the postal ZIP code rather than the village name. Getting it wrong once tends to follow you through several databases.

If you are working through a relocation checklist, the practical relocation guide for Orleans covers the sequence for utilities, town records and address changes.

02653: The Standard Orleans ZIP Code

02653 is the delivery ZIP code for Orleans and covers the great majority of the town's land area. Postal records classify it as a standard ZIP code with normal street delivery, split roughly between residential and business delivery points.

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates 6,524 residents in Orleans as of July 2025, up from 6,307 at the 2020 census. Nearly all of them receive mail under 02653.

The ZIP code covers the commercial spine of the town along Main Street and Route 6A, the town offices, Snow Library, the elementary school, and the harbor and beach areas on both sides of the Cape.

Landmarks and destinations inside 02653 include:

• Rock Harbor and its charter fleet on the Cape Cod Bay side
• Skaket Beach and its tidal flats, also on the bay
• Nauset Beach on the Atlantic side
• Pleasant Bay frontage in the southern part of town
• The Orleans Post Office at 56 Main Street

The Orleans Chamber of Commerce office sits at 44 Main Street, Orleans, MA 02653, which gives you a working example of a standard Orleans street address.

Because 02653 is the only ZIP code in town with a real delivery boundary, it is also the only one that produces a meaningful map polygon. More on that below.

02643: What the East Orleans ZIP Code Actually Covers

02643 is a PO Box only ZIP code assigned to East Orleans. It has no street delivery routes. Its entire function is to route mail to the boxes at the East Orleans Post Office, 210 Main Street, East Orleans, MA 02643.

The numbers make the point plainly. Current ZIP datasets record a year round population of 13 people inside 02643 against roughly 693 PO Boxes. A residential delivery district does not look like that. A village post office does.

East Orleans as a place is much larger than that. It is the eastern quarter of town, running out toward the Atlantic, and it includes the Tonset and Barley Neck areas, the Nauset Heights bluffs, and the approach road to Nauset Beach. Hundreds of homes sit in that area. Their street addresses are delivered under 02653.

So both statements are true at once, and neither cancels the other:

• The East Orleans neighborhood is a real, well defined part of Orleans with its own post office and its own character.
• The East Orleans ZIP code, 02643, applies to PO Boxes at that post office and not to street addresses.

Real estate listings and directory sites frequently label East Orleans properties as 02643. That is a geographic label rather than a postal one. Before you send a contract or a set of closing documents, verify the address rather than copying the ZIP code from a listing page.

02662: The South Orleans ZIP Code Most Listings Miss

02662 is the third Orleans ZIP code, and it is the one that gets left out of almost every summary of the town. Like 02643, it is classified as a PO Box only zone with no street delivery available through the code itself.

It serves the South Orleans Post Office at 403 South Orleans Road, which is Route 28 as it runs down toward Chatham.

South Orleans is the southern end of town, wrapped around the upper reaches of Pleasant Bay. The area includes Arey's Pond and its boatyard, the Namequoit and Quanset shorelines, and the conservation land at Kent's Point.

Street addresses in South Orleans use 02653. The 02662 code belongs on PO Box mail.

If you have ever had a form reject a South Orleans address, this is usually why. The town name and the ZIP code the form expects do not match the ones you typed.

Orleans MA Post Offices: Locations, Hours and Services

Orleans has three post offices, one for each ZIP code. That is unusual for a town of 6,500 people and it is the direct reason the town carries three postal codes.

Orleans Post Office

• Address: 56 Main Street, Orleans, MA 02653
• Retail window: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 4:45 pm; Saturday, 11:00 am to 1:00 pm
• Lobby and PO Box access: Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 5:00 pm; Saturday, 7:00 am to 1:30 pm
• This is the main office and the one that handles street delivery for the town

East Orleans Post Office

• Address: 210 Main Street, East Orleans, MA 02643
• Listed access: Monday to Friday, 7:00 am to 5:00 pm; Saturday, 7:00 am to 12:00 pm
• Phone: 508-255-4078
• PO Box service for the East Orleans village code

South Orleans Post Office

• Address: 403 South Orleans Road, South Orleans, MA 02662
• Retail window: Monday to Friday, 9:00 am to 4:30 pm; Saturday, 9:30 am to 11:30 am
• Lobby and PO Box access: Monday to Friday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm; Saturday, 8:30 am to 12:00 pm
• PO Box service for the South Orleans village code

Hours listed here were verified in September 2026. Retail windows at small Cape post offices change with the season and with staffing, so confirm before you drive over for a passport appointment or a certified mailing.

Seasonal box demand is real in all three. Summer residents who are only here part of the year often keep a box year round rather than start and stop street delivery, which is part of why a village code like 02643 supports hundreds of boxes against a tiny resident count.

Why an Orleans MA ZIP Code Map Can Mislead You

Search for an Orleans ZIP code map and you will usually get one shaded polygon covering the town. That polygon is 02653, and it is accurate.

What you will rarely get is an honest picture of the other two. Because 02643 and 02662 have no delivery routes, mapping services either omit them or draw a small shape around the post office building. Neither version tells you anything useful about where East Orleans or South Orleans actually begins and ends.

A genuinely useful Orleans postal map shows two layers:

• The 02653 delivery boundary, which is effectively the town boundary
• Point markers for the three post offices, labelled with their village names and codes

Treat any map that renders 02643 and 02662 as full sized neighborhood districts with suspicion. It is inferring boundaries that the postal system does not define.

Orleans Area Code, County and Time Zone

Orleans sits in Barnstable County and uses two area codes, 508 and 774, which overlay the same geography across southeastern Massachusetts. Ten digit dialing is standard for local calls.

The town observes Eastern Time, shifting to Eastern Daylight Time from March through early November. Seasonal daylight swings are wide this far east, which shows up in everything from beach hours to ferry timetables and is worth checking alongside the local weather patterns before a trip.

For mailing purposes, none of this changes the ZIP code. It changes which hours the post office windows are actually open.

Cape Cod ZIP Codes Around Orleans

Orleans borders four towns, and their ZIP codes come up constantly for anyone comparing addresses on the Lower Cape:

• Brewster: 02631
• Chatham: 02633
• Eastham: 02642
• Harwich: 02645
• Wellfleet: 02667, just north of Eastham

The three ZIP code patterns in Orleans are not an anomaly. It is how Cape Cod works. Fifteen towns carry far more than fifteen ZIP codes, because villages within those towns hold their own postal identities and often their own post offices.

Barnstable is the clearest example. The town covers Hyannis, Centerville, Cotuit, Osterville, Marstons Mills, West Barnstable and several more, each with a distinct code. Falmouth includes Woods Hole and North Falmouth. Yarmouth splits into South Yarmouth, West Yarmouth and Yarmouth Port. The Barnstable County Registry of Deeds maintains a full list of Cape Cod towns and villages with their ZIP codes, which is the reference worth bookmarking if you handle Cape addresses often.

The same caution applies across the board. A village ZIP code on Cape Cod may be a delivery code or a box only code, and the name alone will not tell you which.

Anyone planning to move between Lower Cape towns will find the comparison useful when weighing day trips and neighbouring town access from an Orleans base.

What the Orleans ZIP Code Tells You About the Town

ZIP codes are administrative, but 02653 does cluster a specific kind of place. Here is what sits inside it.

Housing and real estate

Orleans is expensive and heavily seasonal. Census figures for 2020 through 2024 put the median home value at $957,000 and median household income at $102,335. A large share of the town's housing units are held for seasonal or occasional use rather than year round occupancy, which keeps the winter population well below the summer one.

That pattern shapes everything from rental supply to school enrollment. The Orleans real estate overview breaks down how the seasonal market behaves, and the cost of living breakdown covers the running costs behind the headline prices.

Schools serving Orleans addresses

Orleans Elementary School serves the town's youngest students. Older students attend Nauset Regional Middle School in Orleans and Nauset Regional High School in North Eastham, both part of the Nauset Public Schools district shared with Brewster, Eastham and Wellfleet.

Enrollment paperwork uses the 02653 street address, not the village name.

Getting around

Route 6 runs along the town's western edge, Route 6A carries local traffic through the centre, and Route 28 heads south toward Chatham. The Cape Cod Rail Trail passes directly through Orleans and links the town to Brewster, Harwich, Eastham and Wellfleet without a car.

The Orleans biking and trail guide covers the rail trail access points, and beach parking rules are set out in the town parking regulations guide.

Town government and civic life

Orleans runs on open town meeting government, with a town manager handling daily operations and an elected Select Board setting policy. The town formally uses the term Select Board, which replaced the older board of selectmen terminology.

Town Hall, the town clerk's office and voter registration all operate under the 02653 address. Snow Library, the town's public library, sits on Main Street and anchors much of the civic calendar.

History, business and culture

Orleans was incorporated on 3 March 1797, split off from Eastham. Local histories trace the name to the Duke of Orléans and the pro French sentiment of the period, though the attribution is traditional rather than documented.

The French Cable Station opened in Orleans in 1891 and handled transatlantic telegraph traffic through a cable running to Brest, France until the station closed in 1959. It survives as one of a small number of original telegraph stations left anywhere, and the French Cable Station Museum tells that story in the original building.

The Jonathan Young Windmill on Town Cove, the Orleans Historical Society, the Academy of Performing Arts and the Orleans Firebirds of the Cape Cod Baseball League all operate from 02653 addresses. So does most of the town's retail, dining and lodging trade, which concentrates along Main Street and Route 6A.

Orleans ZIP Codes: What to Remember

Three ZIP codes, one of which does the work. 02653 is what belongs on an envelope with a street number on it. 02643 and 02662 are the village box codes at East Orleans and South Orleans, useful and real, but not interchangeable with a physical address.

When an address has any consequence attached, whether that is a closing, a registration or a shipment you cannot afford to lose, run it through the postal lookup rather than guessing from the village name.

If you are settling into an Orleans address and want to find the local businesses, trades and professionals working under these ZIP codes, browse the Orleans Chamber member directory, or reach the Chamber office directly for help tracking down a service in town.