Send a letter to Portugal from Sweden

The postcode must be written with seven digits in the format 0000-000 and appears before the city name. The final three digits identify a very small area, sometimes a single street, so leaving them out will slow delivery considerably.

House numbers come after the street name, followed by floor and side: 2º Esq (esquerdo, left) or 2º Dto (direito, right). This detail is especially important in Lisbon addresses.

Street types are written in full: Rua, Avenida, Praça, Travessa. Common abbreviations like Av. and Pç. work fine and are widely used.

The last line of the address must read PORTUGAL in capital letters—written in Swedish, not English or Portuguese, because the letter is sorted in Sweden before it leaves the country. This is counter-intuitive when you're writing in English, but essential.

Madeira and the Azores have their own postcode series and delivery takes a few days longer than to mainland Portugal.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: PORTUGAL. 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 Portugal, 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 Portugal:

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 4–8 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 Portugal 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 Portugal 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 Portugal 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.

CTT, the Portuguese postal operator, runs a highly detailed postcode system where the final three digits provide precision almost comparable to an Irish Eircode. This makes accurate addressing essential—the difference between 1000-001 and 1000-250 can mean opposite ends of a neighbourhood.

Mail to Madeira and the Azores travels by air and typically takes a few days longer than to the mainland. Both island groups have dedicated postcode ranges that begin with 9, making them easy to identify. Standard addressing rules apply, but allow extra time for the additional leg of the journey.

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 — PORTUGAL 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.