Almost every cover letter template still starts with a block of addresses: yours, then the company's, formatted like a formal business letter from 1995. You are emailing a PDF. Nobody is folding it into an envelope. So does the address still belong there?

Short answer: your city, yes. Your full street address, almost never. Let's unpack when the old format helps and when it just adds clutter.

Why the full address became optional

The address block existed so a letter could be posted back to you. That use case is gone. Today a recruiter opens your application in an inbox or an applicant tracking system, and your exact street number tells them one thing only: how far you live from the office.

That is not neutral. For a role that is on-site, a long commute can quietly count against you before anyone reads your first sentence. For a remote role, your precise address is irrelevant. Either way, a full street address gives away more than it earns.

What to include instead

Replace the street address with a compact header that a human and a machine can both use:

• Your name
• City and country (or city and region)
• Email and phone
• A LinkedIn URL if it is strong

That covers everything a recruiter needs. "London, UK" answers the location question without handing over your doorstep. If the job is hybrid and proximity is a selling point, keeping your city visible actually works in your favor.

The cases where a full address still makes sense

A few situations justify the old format:

1. Formal sectors and public-sector roles. Government, legal, academic and some traditional industries still expect a complete business-letter layout, address block included. When in doubt for these, match the convention.
2. Applications that explicitly ask for it. If the posting or a form requests your address, give it.
3. Country norms. In parts of continental Europe a fuller header is still standard, while US and UK practice has moved toward just the city.

Outside these, the city-only header is cleaner and modern.

Don't bury it in a header image

Wherever your contact details land, keep them as plain, selectable text in the document body. If you drop them into a designed banner or the file's header strip, an applicant tracking system may not read them, and a recruiter who wants to reply hits a blank. The same rule applies to your CV, so keep both documents consistent.

Spend your space on the opening line instead

Here is the real point. The first quarter of a cover letter is the most valuable space you have, and the address block wastes it. Trim the formal scaffolding and you free up room for an opening that actually earns a read. Our guide to writing a cover letter covers how to structure the rest once the header is out of the way.

So: city and country, contact details, then straight into your first sentence. Save the full address for the rare formal application that genuinely asks for it.