Send a letter to South Africa from Sweden

The postcode consists of four digits and must appear on its own line immediately before the country name.

Post Office boxes are the most common address format in South Africa. If the recipient does have a street address, write the house or building number before the street name.

The suburb must appear on its own line before the city name—it's a critical part of the address and cannot be omitted.

The final line must read SYDAFRIKA in capital letters. This is the Swedish name for South Africa, because your letter is sorted in Sweden before leaving the country.

Here's a counter-intuitive point for English speakers: even though you're writing in English, that last line stays in Swedish—SYDAFRIKA, not SOUTH AFRICA—so Swedish postal workers can route it correctly.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: SYDAFRIKA. 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 South Africa, 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 South Africa:

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 South Africa 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 South Africa 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 South Africa 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.

The South African Post Office handles international mail entering the country, but it's important to know that the service has experienced significant operational difficulties in recent years. Delivery times have become considerably longer and less predictable than they once were.

If you're sending anything time-sensitive to South Africa, build in a substantial margin. The 10–20 working day estimate is a guideline under normal conditions, but delays beyond this window have become more common. For critical documents, you may want to consider express service or have a backup plan in place.

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 — SYDAFRIKA 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.