Send a letter to Kenya from Sweden

A complete Kenyan address consists of the recipient's name, their P.O. Box number, a five-digit postal code, and the town or city name.

Street addresses are rarely used for postal delivery in Kenya. Always ask your recipient for their P.O. Box number before sending a letter.

The postal code (five digits) must appear before the town name on the line above the country line.

The final line of the address must read KENYA in capital letters and in Swedish, because your letter is sorted in Sweden before it leaves the country—this is counter-intuitive when writing in English, but essential for correct routing.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: KENYA. 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 Kenya, 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 Kenya:

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 10–20 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 Kenya 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 Kenya 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 Kenya 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.

Posta Kenya operates the postal network across the country, with distribution built almost entirely around P.O. Boxes located at post offices. There is no general door-to-door delivery service to residential street addresses, so virtually all mail—personal and business—is collected from post office boxes.

Delivery speed within Kenya depends heavily on the destination's infrastructure. A letter to a P.O. Box in Nairobi or another major city typically arrives faster than one addressed to a rural post office, even though both travel on the same flight from Sweden. It's the internal distribution network within Kenya, not the international leg, that determines the final timeline.

When you send a letter through Posta Brev, we post it within the Swedish system and it travels via the international postal network to Kenya. From there, Posta Kenya handles sorting and delivery to the recipient's registered box. Make sure your recipient checks their box regularly, as collection is their responsibility.

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 — KENYA 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.