Swiss Post is (mostly) efficient and punctual with mail deliveries, but if you want your letters and packages to get to their destinations for Christmas, don’t procrastinate.
Switzerland’s Post tops the chart of the world’s ‘best performing postal services’, with the perfect 100-point score.
So with the exception of some unforeseen glitches which can happen even in the best organised society, you can be fairly sure that your mail will get to its destination by Christmas – as long as you respect the ‘mail by’ date.
That date depends on whether you send letters or packages, and also whether they are going within Switzerland or abroad.
Deadlines to engrave in your calendar (lest you forget):
Switzerland
Priority A letters should be mailed by December 23rd at the latest to be distributed on December 24th.
Economy B mail should be in the post by December 21st to arrive in time for Christmas.
For packages within the country, the deadlines are: December 23rd for Priority A, and December 22nd for Economy B.
Abroad
Within Europe, letters and small packages should be shipped by December 9th, and bigger parcels by December 8th.
PostPac International (Economy) should be at the post office even earlier, on December 3rd.
If you are shipping to countries outside Europe, you should have everything packed and ready to go by December 3rd for letters and small packages.
Bigger packages are not likely to get to a destination outside Europe if you have not sent them out already; in this case, your option is to send everything out by URGENT mail, between December 9th and 10th, at a steeper price, of course (see below).
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Will your letters and parcels get to their international destinations on time?
The bad news is that the actual distribution is out of the Swiss Post’s control.
However, if you are mailing to Austria or Germany, your chances of a punctual distribution are better than average — both countries rank high (in second and third place, respectively (after Switzerland, of course) – in the international comparison. Scores for both are in the mid-90s — lower than Switzerland’s ‘100’ rating, but still good.
Your odds are also fairly decent with mail distribution in Japan (91.5), France (88.3), the United States (86.4), the UK (85.3), the Netherlands (84), and Canada (81.8).
However, a chance of an on-time delivery are lower in Italy (72.9).
What about posting packages to the US?
On August 26th, the Swiss Post had stopped accepting shipments to the United States, following President Donald Trump’s executive order abolishing the exemption limit of $800 for goods imported into the US.
In an update, from Thursday, September 4th, private individuals have able to send gift consignments of up to $100 (equivalent 80 francs) addressed exclusively to private individuals, Swiss Post said, adding that electronic devices or electronic data carriers cannot be included in packages.
Gifts with a value of more than $100 (80 francs) are still not permitted, however.
However, letters (including official documents and certificates), as well as express items sent via URGENT Express International with FedEx Express Swiss Post GmbH are not affected by the decision to stop accepting US-bound shipments.
If you’ve had problems with post from Switzerland to abroad, let us know in the comments section below.
