June 9, 2026
Sending International Mail: Costs, Customs and What You Cannot Post
By Sander · 5 min read
Sooner or later a good pen pal friendship arrives at the post office, and the post office turns out to be more complicated than anyone remembers. Here is the practical stuff, gathered from members who send physical mail regularly and have made most of the available mistakes.
What it costs
Roughly, for a standard international letter up to 20g, as of mid-2026. Prices change often, so treat these as an order of magnitude rather than gospel.
| From | Standard international letter | Rough time to Europe |
|---|---|---|
| Netherlands | €1.75 | 3–6 days |
| Germany | €1.25 | 3–6 days |
| United Kingdom | £2.80 | 3–7 days |
| France | €2.10 | 3–6 days |
| United States | $1.65 | 7–14 days |
| Canada | C$2.80 | 7–14 days |
| Japan | ¥140 | 6–10 days |
| Australia | A$4.10 | 8–15 days |
| Brazil | R$12 | 10–20 days |
| India | ₹25 | 10–20 days |
Two things surprise people. First, the sender's country matters far more than the distance — posting from Japan to Germany is cheaper than posting from Australia to New Zealand. Second, weight bands are brutal: going from 20g to 21g can double the price. A single sheet of ordinary paper is about 5g, an envelope about 5g, so you have room for roughly two sheets before you need to think.
The cheap trick everyone learns eventually: thin paper. Airmail paper — the crinkly stuff your grandparents used — exists precisely because it lets you send six pages for the price of two.
Customs: the short version
Letters containing only correspondence need no customs declaration anywhere. The moment you put an object in the envelope, you are sending goods, and goods need a declaration.
That form is the CN22 (small items, generally under about €300 in value) or the CN23 (larger). You get it free at the post office. It asks what the contents are, what they are worth, and whether they are a gift, a sample or merchandise.
Some hard-won practical advice:
- Declare it as a gift and give an honest, low value. Undervaluing deliberately is fraud; but a hand-decorated card genuinely is worth €2, not €20.
- Be specific in the description. "Gift" gets opened. "Postcards and stickers, handmade card" does not.
- The recipient pays any duty, not you — which is the single most important thing to know before sending anyone a surprise. A parcel that lands your friend with a €19 handling fee from customs is not a nice surprise. Ask first if you are sending anything of any real value.
- Every country has a de minimis threshold below which nothing is charged. Within the EU there is no customs at all between member states. Into the EU from outside, VAT applies from the first euro, though small gifts between private individuals under €45 are usually exempt.
What you absolutely cannot send
This list is close to universal:
- Cash, cheques, bank cards, anything negotiable. (Also: never send cash to a pen pal for any reason. See our scams guide.)
- Perishable food, and in most cases any food at all across a customs border.
- Seeds, plants, soil, wood, dried flowers. Biosecurity rules on these are extremely strict — Australia and New Zealand in particular will destroy them without hesitation.
- Batteries loose in an envelope, anything with a lithium battery inside it in many cases, aerosols, nail polish, perfume, lighters.
- Meat and dairy of any kind into the EU, UK, US, Australia. Yes, including chocolate with a milk filling in some jurisdictions — in practice this is rarely enforced for a bar of chocolate, but the rule exists.
- Alcohol, tobacco, medicines (including vitamins in several countries), and anything that requires a licence.
Things people wrongly assume are fine: pressed flowers (biosecurity), tea (agricultural product in several countries), soap and cosmetics (restricted into some destinations), and used clothing (restricted into a surprising number).
Things that are almost always fine: postcards, stickers, washi tape, stationery, sealed commercial sweets to most destinations, coins for a collection, photographs, drawings, small flat souvenirs, ticket stubs, maps.
Making it arrive intact
- Address in the destination's format, but write the country in English or French and in capitals on the last line. That last line is the only part the sending country's sorting office reads.
- For non-Latin scripts, write the address in the local script and a romanised version. Japanese and Korean post handle this routinely.
- Put your return address on it. Undeliverable mail without one is destroyed.
- Bulky envelopes get charged as parcels. Anything thicker than about 5mm usually falls out of the letter rate. A "large letter" rate exists in many countries and is much cheaper than a parcel — ask for it by name.
- Rigid things break machines. Anything hard needs a padded envelope, and then it is a parcel.
- Rain exists. A cheap plastic sleeve inside the envelope costs nothing and has saved a lot of letters.
Tracking, and whether you need it
For a letter, no. Tracked international post typically costs €6–15 and is worth it only for something genuinely irreplaceable. Ordinary international letter post has a very high success rate; what it lacks is a guarantee, and the occasional letter does simply vanish.
Set expectations with your pen pal accordingly: if a letter has not arrived after four weeks, it is probably gone rather than late, and it happens to everyone eventually.
Timing, and the annual disaster
International post slows down dramatically from late November to early January. If you are sending anything meant to arrive for a December holiday, post it by mid-November from anywhere outside the destination's own continent. Every year, members are surprised by this. Every year, it is true.
Southern-hemisphere winter, national strikes, and Ramadan/Eid periods in some countries also affect delivery times noticeably.
Before you send anything at all
Exchanging postal addresses is a real step, and worth taking slowly. Our Safety Centre covers this properly, but the short version: wait until you have written for months, consider a PO box or poste restante address for the first exchange, and never feel obliged. Plenty of long friendships on this site have never involved a stamp.
If you do send something: keep it small, keep it flat, declare it honestly, and put more in the letter than in the parcel. The thing your pen pal will keep is almost never the gift.