Send a letter from Sweden to North America

The United States and Canada put the city, the state or province code and the postal code on the same line, in that order: SPRINGFIELD, IL 62704 and OTTAWA ON K1A 0B1.

The state code is not optional. More than thirty US states have a Springfield, and without the code the letter cannot be sorted by machine.

Canadian postal codes alternate letter and digit: K1A 0B1. The letters D, F, I, O, Q and U are never used — if you see one, something has been misread.

Mexico requires the colonia, the neighbourhood, on its own line. Without it the post office rarely finds the address.

The last line is still the country name in Swedish: USA, KANADA or MEXIKO in capitals.

Normal delivery is 6–20 working days counted from our hand-in to PostNord. Order before 11:45 on a weekday and the letter is handed in the same day.

The United States and Canada have reliable delivery but long internal distances. Northern Canada is reached by air.

Mexico has limited delivery outside the cities, and many recipients use an Apartado Postal instead of a street address.

Each country has its own page with a correctly formatted example address, the normal delivery time and the mistakes that are most common on letters going there.

88 SEK for a standard letter and 128 SEK for express, whichever country you write to. Printing, paper, envelope, postage and hand-in are included.

PostNord divides the world into seven zones when you buy stamps yourself. With us the zone is irrelevant — you never need to know which one the destination belongs to.

Every letter you send through us is posted inside Sweden. Swedish sorting reads the last line of the address to decide which country the letter leaves for, and it reads Swedish country names.

So write GERMANY nowhere and TYSKLAND on the last line. Everything above it should be written as a postal worker in the destination country would expect to read it.

Banknotes and coins may not be sent in an international letter. Dangerous goods are prohibited, and goods sent to countries outside the EU need a customs declaration that an ordinary letter does not carry.

We send documents and personal letters only.