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ZIP Codes

Cincinnati ZIP Codes: All 71, and Two That Aren't in Hamilton County

Cincinnati's 71 ZIP codes almost all sit in Hamilton County, except one that's a 20,000-person Clermont County suburb, and one that's an 18-box mail drop with no residents at all.

Last updated 2026-09-06

Core summary

USPS assigns 71 ZIP codes with Cincinnati as the primary place name, and this site's GeoNames-based source data puts 69 of them inside Hamilton County, where Cincinnati has been the county seat since the county's creation in 1790. The other two sit outside it: 45245 is a Clermont County community of roughly 20,000 people, spanning Withamsville, Mount Carmel, and Summerside, addressed as Cincinnati because its mail route runs out of a Cincinnati-area postal facility, not a Clermont one. 45275, which this site's GeoNames-based data places in Brown County, has no recorded residents at all: postal trackers describe it as an 18-box mail-drop facility on a single road, Clay Drive. (Other USPS-based directories place 45275 in Hamilton County instead; see the disagreement addressed below.) One more code on the list, 45999, isn't a neighborhood either: it's the dedicated ZIP the IRS uses at its Cincinnati service center to process specific categories of business and international tax filings.

69 in Hamilton County, plus two that most directories miss

Most ZIP code directories, including several with active Cincinnati listings, file all 71 of the city's ZIP codes under a single county: Hamilton, where Cincinnati has served as county seat since Arthur St. Clair organized the county in 1790. This site's source data, built from GeoNames' postal code registry, agrees on the total (71, matching independent counts from zip-codes.com and ZipCodesToGo), but splits two of those codes into neighboring counties instead of Hamilton.

45245 belongs to Clermont County, covering Withamsville, Mount Carmel, and Summerside across Union and Pierce townships, an active suburban area on Cincinnati's east side with roughly 20,000 residents. This site's data attributes 45275 to Brown County, the only Cincinnati-addressed ZIP code that gets that treatment (more on a real disagreement over that county line below), and unlike 45245, it isn't a residential community. GeoNames and other postal trackers describe it as a single-route PO box facility, 18 boxes along Clay Drive, with no population recorded.

Why some directories put 45275 in Hamilton County instead

This isn't a case of one source being careless. This site's ZIP-to-county data comes from GeoNames' postal code registry, and it assigns 45275 to Brown County. But two of the most widely cited USPS-based ZIP directories disagree: zip-codes.com's own page for 45275, listed among this article's sources, tags the ZIP Hamilton County in its site navigation, and ZipCodesToGo's Cincinnati-area listing does the same. All three sources agree on everything else: that USPS assigns 45275 to a Cincinnati mailing address, that it's an 18-box PO-only facility on Clay Drive, and that no residential population is recorded there.

The likely cause is a boundary-conversion mismatch, not a factual error on any one source's part. Postal ZIP codes are drawn for mail routing, not county lines, so different providers convert a five-digit ZIP into a county using different geographic methods (ZIP centroid, primary carrier route, or ZCTA overlap), and a tiny, low-volume ZIP like 45275 is exactly the kind of edge case where those methods land on different counties. Anyone who needs 45275's county for a legal, tax, or voter-registration purpose should confirm directly with Hamilton County's or Brown County's own records rather than relying on any ZIP-code directory, including this one.

All 71 ZIP codes with "Cincinnati, OH" as the primary USPS place name

Sixty-nine of the 71 sit in Hamilton County. The two exceptions are marked below.

All 71 ZIP codes with "Cincinnati, OH" as the primary USPS place name, by county (per GeoNames.org, checked 2026-08-17)

ZIPCounty
45201Hamilton
45202Hamilton
45203Hamilton
45204Hamilton
45205Hamilton
45206Hamilton
45207Hamilton
45208Hamilton
45209Hamilton
45211Hamilton
45212Hamilton
45213Hamilton
45214Hamilton
45215Hamilton
45216Hamilton
45217Hamilton
45218Hamilton
45219Hamilton
45220Hamilton
45221Hamilton
45222Hamilton
45223Hamilton
45224Hamilton
45225Hamilton
45226Hamilton
45227Hamilton
45229Hamilton
45230Hamilton
45231Hamilton
45232Hamilton
45233Hamilton
45234Hamilton
45235Hamilton
45236Hamilton
45237Hamilton
45238Hamilton
45239Hamilton
45240Hamilton
45241Hamilton
45242Hamilton
45243Hamilton
45244Hamilton
45245Clermont
45246Hamilton
45247Hamilton
45248Hamilton
45249Hamilton
45250Hamilton
45251Hamilton
45252Hamilton
45253Hamilton
45254Hamilton
45255Hamilton
45258Hamilton
45262Hamilton
45263Hamilton
45264Hamilton
45267Hamilton
45268Hamilton
45269Hamilton
45270Hamilton
45271Hamilton
45273Hamilton
45274Hamilton
45275Brown
45277Hamilton
45280Hamilton
45296Hamilton
45298Hamilton
45299Hamilton
45999Hamilton

45999 isn't a ZIP code for anyone who lives there

One entry on the list, 45999, doesn't correspond to a neighborhood or a residential mail route: it's the ZIP code the IRS uses at its Cincinnati service center to process specific categories of business and international tax correspondence. IRS notices mailed from Cincinnati, including forms like the CP132 balance-due notice, carry a return address of "Internal Revenue Service, Cincinnati, OH 45999," with a numeric stop code appended for internal routing. Which specific filings route to Cincinnati rather than another IRS service center varies by form type (different notices and forms list different coverage areas), which is part of why the center got its own dedicated ZIP code, not one shared with any Cincinnati neighborhood.

Cincinnati isn't the only city on this site with an IRS-only ZIP in its list: Atlanta's does too, assigned to a separate service center entirely.

513 split once, in 1996, then got a second layer in 2023

Cincinnati's area code, 513, dates to 1947, one of the original area codes assigned nationwide. It covered the whole region alone for almost fifty years, until September 28, 1996, when regulators split off a new code, 937, for Dayton, Springfield, and the rest of southwestern Ohio outside the immediate Cincinnati metro, the same kind of geographic split this site has covered for Chicago and other major metro area codes.

513 itself was never split again after 1996. Instead, on April 28, 2023, regulators added an overlay code, 283, covering the identical territory as 513 rather than dividing it further. New phone numbers in the Cincinnati region can now be assigned either 513 or 283, while every number already carrying a 513 area code keeps working exactly as before.

Frequently asked questions

How many ZIP codes does Cincinnati have?

71. Three independently built sources land on that same number, this site's own postal-registry compilation, zip-codes.com, and ZipCodesToGo, which is a stronger check than any single source alone: it means the county-line disagreements described on this page are boundary-classification disputes over a couple of specific ZIPs, not a case of anyone missing or double-counting a ZIP code entirely.

What county is Cincinnati in?

Mostly Hamilton County, Cincinnati's county seat since the county was organized in 1790. Two of the city's 71 ZIP codes fall outside it: 45245 in Clermont County and 45275 in Brown County.

Why is ZIP code 45999 different from the rest?

It isn't a neighborhood. 45999 is a Cincinnati return address reserved for specific corporate and cross-border filings, for example Form SS-4, the EIN application, when a company's principal place of business is outside the U.S.: the instructions for that form direct those filers to mail it to "EIN International Operation, Cincinnati, OH 45999." A domestic business applying for the same kind of EIN files at a different address entirely.

What is Cincinnati's area code?

513, assigned in 1947. Dayton and the rest of southwestern Ohio split off as a separate code, 937, in 1996; Cincinnati's own area kept 513 and later added an overlay code, 283, in 2023, so both can now be assigned to new numbers in the same region.

Does anyone live in ZIP code 45275?

Not according to postal records. Whichever county 45275 technically sits in, a point this site's own sources don't fully agree on, every one of them describes the same tiny facility: 18 PO boxes strung along one road, Clay Drive, and nobody actually lives there, a sharp contrast with the roughly 20,000-person suburban community covered by neighboring 45245.

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Written and edited by the DialWick Editorial Team