Send a letter to South Korea from Sweden

The current addressing system uses street names ending in -daero (major road), -ro (road), or -gil (alley), followed by the building number.

After the street address comes the district, which will end in -gu, -si, or -gun, then the city name and a five-digit postal code.

If your recipient has given you an old address containing -dong and a block number, that format has been out of use since 2014. Ask them for the new street-based address.

The final line of the address must be SYDKOREA in capital letters. This is the Swedish name for South Korea, written in Swedish because the letter is sorted in Sweden before leaving the country.

This might feel strange when you're writing in English, but Swedish postal regulations require the destination country in Swedish on the last line.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: SYDKOREA. 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 Korea, 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 Korea:

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 7–14 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 Korea 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 Korea 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 Korea 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.

Korea Post operates one of the most efficient postal networks in Asia. The switch to street-name addressing in 2014 was a major reform that brought South Korea in line with international addressing standards, making mail sorting and delivery significantly more reliable for letters arriving from abroad.

The new system has streamlined the entire delivery process. Where the old block-based jibun addresses could be ambiguous and difficult for foreign postal services to process, the current street-name format is clear, logical, and works seamlessly with international postal routing systems.

Mail from Sweden to South Korea is handled smoothly once it arrives in the country, provided the address follows the post-2014 format. Korea Post's infrastructure is modern and delivery times are generally predictable, though they can vary depending on whether the destination is in Seoul, another major city, or a more rural area.

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 — SYDKOREA 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.