Send a letter to China from Sweden

If you write the address in Latin script (English letters), reverse the order to Western style: recipient name, room/apartment, building, street address, district, city, six-digit postcode, with KINA on the final line.

The postcode has six digits and is written after the city name.

Chinese surnames come first: if the recipient is Li Wei, Li is the family name and Wei is the given name.

The last line must read KINA in capital letters—this is Swedish for China, and Swedish sorting staff need it in Swedish before the letter leaves the country.

Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan are separate postal territories with their own country codes—do not address them as China.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: KINA. This surprises people who write the rest of the address in English, but the letter is sorted in Sweden before it leaves the country, and Swedish sorting reads Swedish. Everything above that line should look exactly as it would if the letter had been posted inside China, because a postal worker there is the one who has to read it.

Almost every letter that fails to arrive has an address problem, not a transport problem. These are the mistakes that keep coming back on mail posted from Sweden to China:

Always add a sender address. A letter with a correct sender comes back to you if the address is wrong, and you can then send it again. Without one, the letter is simply gone.

Normal delivery is 8–15 vardagar, counted from the moment we hand the letter to PostNord — not from the moment you order. Order before 11:45 on a weekday and the letter is handed in the same day.

Most of the variation comes from distribution inside China rather than from the flight. A letter to a major city arrives faster than one to a rural address in the same country.

A standard letter to China costs 88 SEK and an express letter 128 SEK. Printing, paper, envelope, postage and hand-in to PostNord are all included. The price is the same to every country, so you never need to know which postal zone China belongs to.

PostNord divides the world into seven zones if you buy stamps and post the letter yourself, which is why other services charge different amounts for different countries. The table below shows both options.

China Post operates the world's largest postal delivery network, reaching virtually every address across the country. International mail is subject to customs inspection, which can add several days to the delivery window, so allow time for clearance on top of the standard transit period.

If possible, ask your recipient to provide their address written in Chinese characters. This dramatically improves delivery accuracy, especially in rural areas or smaller cities where Romanised addresses can cause confusion. Even when using Chinese script, always write the final country line—KINA—in Latin letters so Swedish sorting staff route the letter correctly.

Registered international mail (Rek utrikes) may contain documents only, weighs no more than 2 kg and carries liability up to 2,000 SEK. It can be tracked to most countries, and only one recipient may be named.

It is the right service for notices of termination, powers of attorney and legal documents where you need proof that the letter was sent. The country name still has to be written in Swedish on a registered letter — KINA on the last line.

Banknotes and coins may not be sent in an international letter, in any currency and for any amount. Dangerous goods are prohibited. Goods sent in a letter to a country outside the EU require a customs declaration and a barcode that an ordinary letter does not carry.

We therefore send documents and personal letters only. That is also what keeps the service simple: no customs forms, no weighing and no questions about the contents.

You need no printer, no envelope and no international stamps. Everything happens in your browser, and the letter is handed to PostNord in Sweden by us.