Send a letter to Sri Lanka from Sweden

Write the house number before the street name.

The postcode has five digits and comes after the city name. Major cities like Colombo also use district numbers (e.g. Colombo 3) which appear before the postcode.

Write the recipient's name on the first line, followed by the street address with house number first, then the city with any district number, then the five-digit postcode.

The final line must read SRI LANKA in capital letters. This is crucial: even though you're writing in English, use the Swedish country name in capitals because your letter is sorted in Sweden before leaving the country.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: SRI LANKA. 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 Sri Lanka, 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 Sri Lanka:

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 Sri Lanka 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 Sri Lanka 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 Sri Lanka 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.

Sri Lanka Post operates the national postal service and maintains good coverage across the island nation. The network serves both urban centres and rural areas, with the main international mail hub located in Colombo, the commercial capital.

Airmail from Europe is routed through Colombo's sorting facility before onward delivery to other parts of the island. Standard delivery times from Sweden typically range from 10 to 20 working days, depending on the final destination and local sorting capacity.

Posta Brev posts your letter from inside Sweden, so it enters the international airmail system as a domestic Swedish posting. This means standard Swedish postage rates apply: 88 SEK for normal airmail service or 128 SEK for express handling.

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 — SRI LANKA 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.