Send a letter to United States from Sweden

The house number comes before the street name: 1234 Elm Street. Apartment is written Apt, suite as Ste, and appears after the street address or on its own line.

The last address line before the country contains three parts in fixed order: city, two-letter state code, and ZIP code. SPRINGFIELD, IL 62704. The state code is not optional—there is a Springfield in over thirty states, and without the code the letter cannot be sorted.

The ZIP code has five digits, sometimes with a four-digit extension after a hyphen: 62704-1234. The extension speeds delivery but is optional.

Leading zeros in ZIP codes on the East Coast (such as 02134 Boston) must be included.

The final line is USA in capital letters.

The last line is always the country name in Swedish: USA. 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 United States, 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 United States:

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 6–12 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 United States 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 United States 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 United States 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.

USPS delivers mail six days a week to virtually every address in the country, but incoming international mail first passes through an international exchange point, which adds several days to the journey.

Military addresses (APO/FPO) follow their own rules: the city is replaced with APO or FPO, and the state code with AA, AE, or AP.

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 — USA 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.