N-Ways
Home codes
In most of Senegal a delivery ends with a phone call: “I’m at the boutique, which way now?” From 20 October 2026 that changes. Every compound in the country, in town and village, has a home code: 3,597,138 of them, in all 46 zones.
What a home code is
A home code is the name of your quartier, village or cité and a short number. Nothing else to learn.
Ouakam 2512 is said “Ouakam, vingt-cinq, douze”, two pairs, the way phone numbers are said, or digit by digit in Wolof. Smaller places get three digits, bigger ones five: Touba Mosquée 22 950. The name in the code is never longer than 12 characters and two words, so S.I.C.A.P. Liberté Six is simply Liberté 6; the full name is printed small beside it, and typing it still works.
The code belongs to the whole compound, the concession, villa or apartment block one gate serves, and leads to that gate, not to the middle of a roof. A concession with several houses, a kitchen and a store has one code.
One code, one place, in the whole country
Many names repeat: there is a Médina in Dakar and another in Ziguinchor, and Darou Salam in seventeen zones. So every place with the same name shares one national range of numbers, cut into one block per place. “Medina 12 149” is in Dakar and “Medina 22 951” in Ziguinchor, and neither needs the town after it. A courier in Thiès reads the code and knows exactly where to go.
Every compound, every zone
The codes were issued all at once, from Saint-Louis to Kédougou, after grouping 5.6 million mapped buildings into compounds. Each one starts provisional. It becomes confirmed when people who live there agree in the app that it is right, the same way N-Ways corrects its map from what people tell it. Nobody queues at an office and no one checks codes by hand.
Once issued, a code never changes and is never given to another home. A new house built next year gets its own number, between its neighbours. Where the commune has numbered your door, that address comes first, with your code beside it.
How to get yours
- Open N-Ways at home and tap Get my code. The app finds the compound you are standing in and shows its code.
- Not at home? Find your compound on the map and tap it, or drop a pin on it.
- Share it in one tap, on WhatsApp or by text. Paint it on the gate if you like.
A house so new that it isn’t on the map yet gets a code on the spot, provisional until a neighbour confirms it.
What a home code is not
- Not a land title. It is an address, nothing more. It proves neither ownership nor the right to occupy a plot.
- Not about people. A code describes a place. No names of residents are ever stored with it.
- Not a replacement. La Poste’s postcode, the commune’s street plates and, when it publishes, the Adressage Numérique National stay, shown beside the code.
Open for developers
The model, the engine and the registry of every address are open on GitHub. Couriers, banks, shops and public services can decode home codes in their own systems, offline if they need to. The research paper explains every rule, in French and English.