Who Should You Notify When Moving? COA Checklist

Once you decide to move to a new residence, there are plenty of things you’ll need to accomplish. Some tasks can wait until you’re underway. However, there are a few important people and entities you’ll need to notify ahead of time and update your new address to ensure everything flows smoothly moving forward.

While family and friends are the first people to know about this life event, you will need to get in touch with the government and various business entities. The first thing you’ll need to do is file a COA with the USPS to help spread the news.

Do You Need To Notify The Post Office When You Move?

The US Postal Service makes it convenient and easy for you to change and update your address. Once you have the complete and correct details of your new location, it’s highly recommended to file a COA as soon as possible. You can update and change mailing address prior to moving, and there are plenty of ways to do it, including doing everything online, via mail, through phone, or personally.

One of the main reasons you need to update your COA is to ensure you’ll receive all your mails and prevent any risk or issues once you’re all settled into your new residence. This gives everyone a heads up on where to deliver your main instead of sending everything from your previous location.

You can do this a week or two before moving out of the old address. If you work on this part, later on, there can be gaps between the moving day, and mail forwarding begins. You’ll never want to miss any regular and important mails to reach you soon.

Once you’ve done filling the request to your local post office, you can easily focus on notifying the remaining entities about your moving day, providing the new address, and expecting your mails to deliver as it is, fresh and up-to-date.

Who Should You Notify When Moving

Assuming you’ve already done filing your change of address request, here’s your complete checklist of the entities you’ll want to notify ahead of time:

Government Entities

Once you know when the moving date is, it’s better to notify the following government entities to ensure they will forward all your mail to the new address and help future mails to be redirected to the new location.

Social Security Administration

Regardless if you’re collecting your social security benefits or not, you’ll need to notify them in advance.

IRS

It’s a great idea to update the IRS or Internal Revenue Service of your new address. You must notify both state tax agencies and federal revenue agencies of your COA. There are plenty of options to do this process, and most of the time, you can easily file your request online.

Voter Registration

You must notify the Board of Elections of your new location. You can visit their page to assist you and answer all queries about your COA.

DMV

Ensure you also update and notify the Department of Motor Vehicles of your COA. In case you’ll move to a new state, you’ll need to obtain registration and license once you’ve moved. You can also visit USA.gov to check the website for the state’s department accordingly easily.

Businesses

The task doesn’t end when you notify various government entities, as there are several business entities you’ll want to update for your new address.

• Credit unions, loan companies, and banks
• Tax assessors
• Schools
• Dentists, doctors, and various treatment providers
• Accountant, investment, and financial planning services
• Financial aid offices
• Pet sitter, vets, and microchip companies
• Alumni associations
• Home security company
• Attorney
• Insurance companies
• Churches
• Magazine subscriptions and other services
• Volunteer organizations and charities
• Your employer
• Online shopping sites

Utilities

Aside from the aforementioned businesses and government entities, you may want to update utilities that are separate from the COA’s information. Double-checking the list will prevent you from having problems in the future.

• Water department
• Sewer utility
• Recycling/garbage companies
• Internet, cable, and phone
• Electric and gas

Breaking down everything on your checklist will help you move with ease and less stress. You’ll want to make sure that you’ll leave the previous address clean of anything and let the new location ready as soon as the moving day ends.

It’s no fun to get all excited and let the world know about your new address and reach there only to find that you don’t have any heat source, electricity, and worst, no internet. While it’s not a major necessity (we always hear people say that) but the truth is, it is an essential part of your life.

Conclusion

As friends and families will be the first people to know about your moving out, changing and updating your address means you’re now a grown-up, more mature, and highly responsible person.

Things will be a lot easier if you can take care of everything before moving and relaxing, and enjoying the moment on the big day. Keep in mind that it can be stressful to move to a new location with the brim of tasks already filling, but it’s double the stress to track down any lost item or mail.