Address on a Personal Check

Question

Is it necessary to have my address on personal checks? I've moved since having my last set of checks printed and every time I write a check I've been crossing out the old address and writing the new one. I was wondering if it's even necessary to have the address or if a phone number is enough information.

Answer 1

A check is still valid if the address is wrong or missing. On those rare occasions where I write a check, I'm still using the checks that I had when I opened my account half a dozen addresses ago. No one has ever had a problem cashing a check (and I don't bother crossing out the incorrect information).

It is possible if you're still using a personal check to pay in a physical store that the store itself will have a policy that says they only take a check if there is an address that matches the address on the ID the person produces. That does make it less risky for the merchant if they're worried about people intentionally bouncing checks. Most criminals aren't going to bother getting an ID with an invalid address that matches the invalid address on the checks they intend to bounce and they're not going to want to make it trivial to track them down by giving the victim their real address. But that is not a common use case for checks these days.

You can have checks printed without an address if you want.