Postal Delay in the World Due to Current World Situation

[Kiki]

Hello everyone  !

So, I live in Japan and currently we are experiencing Postal delay for mails to all over Europe and Africa, as in the news on Japan Post website, as of 9th March.

I am not sure yet how long of the delay, though.

How about the Postal service in your country ?

🤔

[Kiki]

@ Zorica

Sorry to hear about the increased postage in Serbia. You pay more than we do in Japan. 😣

This month I only sent a card to Lithuania which only took 11 days to arrive there - quite fast. Yesterday I sent 3  cards to Germany. I will still need to see how long my mails to Europe will take 🤔

[Zorica Obradović]

A reorganization of the Post has been carried out in Serbia. In the media and public eye, this is presented as progress. In reality, it means increased postage costs, higher customs rates, and a reduced number of employees, without any financial growth. Supposedly, 'auxiliary machines' have been introduced into the postal system, which were probably imported from a country where they did not perform well. Frequent 'roadblocks' slow down the transit of shipments within the country. Regarding the global world order, no changes have been noticed for now.

Greetings from Serbia.

[Kiki]

@ awyn

I see.... it is a bit shock to me whenever I see postal mails cancelled with a pen. It seems to happen in English speaking countries, like USA, UK, Canada, etc. In Japan, postal workers are not taught to cancel with a pen.

Anyway, today I received a letter from my friend in Serbia which was sent on 26th February 2026. So, it was quite a quick delivery to Japan!

I will still have to see how long of delay we have been experiencing so far in this current world in general. 🤔

[awyn]

Mail I send to the U.S. from Canada (a three-hour drive away)  sometimes takes 15-20 days to get there, but mail sent to France, for example, seems to only take about 4 days. Sometimes mail from the U.S. arrives with one letter having been postmarked 10 days ago, and the other one postmarked 20 days ago.  Mail from Canada to Canada is also quite slow. I once sent myself a letter, just to see how long it would take, sent from my town to my town.  (The answer is: three days.) 

More often, mail arrives with no postmark but someone has manually made a black slash across the stamp with a pen, which indicates that mail did not get processed by a machine. (The time to manually use a pen to  "cross out" the stamp is about the same time it would take to affix an actual postmark manually with a rubber stamp.)

We no longer have a post office in our town.  I take my outgoing mail to the local depanneur (a "7-11" convenience store), which has a little postal counter at the back of the store. There are no postal clerks, only very busy store clerks who also have to help service the postal customers, who are not always so happy to be asked to manually rubber stamp the postmark.  Mail then goes to the next major postal hub an hour and a half away where it gets sent to the border. 

Without postmarks, it is impossible to tell when a card or letter was mailed.  It seems both lazy and intentional on the part of certain regional postal operations.   Thankfully it's not the standard everywhere (yet).  Let's all keep trekkin', though, so mail art survives!!!

[Kiki]

Oh, I see.... so, everyone in the world seems experiencing Postal delay now, it seems...

It is much much better than no postal service working, though. 😲

@Pam

Thank you a lot! I will also send you my mail art 🤓

[Pam Chatfield]

I've noticed a little slowness in the US, but so far nothing too horrible.  (hopefully I didn't just jinx myself.  lol)

I just mailed something to you yesterday.

[William M]

because of the war in iran - in taiwan mail has been suspended to these countries: UAE, Bahrain, Israel, Pakistan, Maldives, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Azerbaijian, Oman, Kuwait, Jordan, Lebanon, Greece, Egypt, and Morocco.

unfortunately, there's still a bunch of countries we haven't been able to mail to since covid (Serbia for example).

[Katerina Nikoltsou (MomKat)]

Sooooo slow for deliveries, here in Greece.

Me thinks they are collected in a sack and put in a store room for weeks?

Out going mail also seems delayed by 4-6 weeks...patience it does eventually arrive.

Sad snail mail! 

[Medwolf]

in saskatchewan canada its slow but working