postage for mail to foreign countries
Daniel R. Levy
net.internat, and net.legal are the closest I could find for this question.
net.mail would not do since that is not meant to be about paper mail, only
about electronic mail.
Anyhow, what I am wondering is whether, and how, the postal delivery system
of a foreign country is reimbursed for its part in accepting, transporting,
and delivering a piece of international paper, or parcel, mail which has
originated in the USA, and for that matter, vice versa. Are there treaties
and procedures governing this, or what? People to whom I have tried to
explain this concept do not seem to be able to grasp what I mean, saying
things like "the dickens with the foreign country! It just delivers the
mail! How simple can you get" and the like. Surely the higher price of
"overseas" or international postage must be doing something more than just
paying the way of the mail it is attached to, to the border of the destination
country, otherwise why higher postage to Canada and Mexico? And surely the
destination country's postal service isn't interested in completing the
delivery gratis. So what's up?
--
------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are
| dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em-
| an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer
| at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack.
| skokie, illinois |
-------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa,
go for it! allegra,ulysses,vax135}!ttrdc!levy
--
------------------------------- Disclaimer: The views contained herein are
| dan levy | yvel nad | my own and are not at all those of my em-
| an engihacker @ | ployer or the administrator of any computer
| at&t computer systems division | upon which I may hack.
| skokie, illinois |
-------------------------------- Path: ..!{akgua,homxb,ihnp4,ltuxa,mvuxa,
go for it! allegra,ulysses,vax135}!ttrdc!levy
Comfy chair
was an mutual agreement to deliver each other's mail. Unfortunately I
can't check with my dad again for his sources. It sounds like the
sensible thing to do, can you imagine the accounting headache
otherwise? But I'd like to hear the real story too.
Ken
D. T. Hawkins
by most (if not all) countries state that countries receiving foreign mail
will deliver it to the addressee without charge. From my stamp collecting
days, I remember a lot of commemoratives being issued for one of the
anniversaries of the UPU.
Don Hawkins
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
...ihnp4!mhuxd!dthk
al...@orca.uucp
>Anyhow, what I am wondering is whether, and how, the postal delivery system
>of a foreign country is reimbursed for its part in accepting, transporting,
>and delivering a piece of international paper, or parcel, mail which has
>originated in the USA, and for that matter, vice versa. Are there treaties
>and procedures governing this, or what?
> .... international postage must be doing something more than just
>paying the way of the mail it is attached to, to the border of the destination
>country, otherwise why higher postage to Canada and Mexico? And surely the
>destination country's postal service isn't interested in completing the
>delivery gratis. So what's up?
>--
Almost all countries of the world are members of the International Postal
Federation, which was set up in the last century to deal with that exact
problem. (Gad, I hope I have the name right!) Prior to the establishment
of the IPF, each country had to establish separate treaties with every
other country in the world!
The IPF is basically a multi-way international treaty that says "I'll
deliver your mail if you deliver mine, and we'll settle the difference."
There are various minimum standards, such as the receiving country is
not supposed to interfere with mail to its citizens, something that
the USSR is frequntly accused of.
The IPF does not actually carry the mail. Mail service between two
different countries varies widely --- an air-mail letter to Japan may
only take a couple days, while an air-mail letter to Poland can easily
take a month (I know). The Polish letters pile up in New York til somebody
decides to ship them over, then the pile up in Poland for a while.
Surface mail takes even longer --- you get to add the time the letter
spends in the hold of a ship to the time the bureaucracy takes.
I don't think the IPF provides for setting the reimbursment rates.
I think what happens is the the receiving country bills the sending
country. Actually, the rates from the US to Canada are the same for
the 1st ounce, and only 1 cent higher for additional ounces (18 vs 17
cents). Postcards are the same rate. I have no info on parcel post;
they may well be wildly different.
MAIL RATES
US to:
Canada & Mexico
1st class letter $.22 (first ounce)
.18 (2nd & subsequent ozs.)
Postcard .14
Columbia, Venezuela, Central America,
the Caribbian, Bahamas, Bermuda, St.
Pierre & Miquelon
Air letter $.39 (per 1/2 oz.)
Surface letter .37 (per 1/2 oz?)
Air Postcard .33
Surface postcard .25
All other countries except
Canada & Mexico
Air letter $.44 (per 1/2 oz.)
Surface letter .37 (per 1/2 oz?)
Air postcard .33
Surface postcard .25
Aerogram $.36
-Alan Jeddeloh
Tektronix GTD
tektronix!orca!alanj
David Lesher
>of a foreign country is reimbursed for its part in accepting, transporting,
>and delivering a piece of international paper, or parcel, mail which has
>originated in the USA, and for that matter, vice versa. Are there treaties
>and procedures governing this, or what?
Strangely enough, you may find the answer in the net.ham-radio group, because
we often mail QSL cards (to confirm a contact with a 'rare' country) overseas.
There is an international treaty regarding mail. I think the governing
body is in Geneva. I do not know how payments are handled, but you can buy
what is called an International Reply Coupon (IRC) that the other end can
use to send mail back to you. Hope this helps.
David Lesher
WB8FOZ
--
decvax!cwruecmp!ncoast!wb8foz
ncoast!wb8...@case.csnet
(ncoast!wb8foz%case....@csnet-relay.ARPA)
"SERIOUS?
Bones, it could upset the entire percentage!"
Alan Jeddeloh
>The Universal Postal Union (UPU) treaties signed back in the late 1800's
I *knew I had the name wrong!
>by most (if not all) countries state that countries receiving foreign mail
>will deliver it to the addressee without charge.
I am currently a stamp collector and follow the US postage rates fairly
closely (c.f. my last posting). The 2nd ounce rate to Canada is 18 cents
(vs 17 for domestic mail). I seem to recall in the last postage
rate increase go-around that the 2nd ounce rate for letters to Canada
was expained as being required to make up a deficit in the Canadian
reimbursment account -- the money the US gives to Canada to deliver
stuff from the US. Of course, I could be wrong, I didn't get the name
of the UPU right!
#ERIC K. BUSTAD
> by most (if not all) countries state that countries receiving foreign mail
> will deliver it to the addressee without charge. From my stamp collecting
> days, I remember a lot of commemoratives being issued for one of the
> anniversaries of the UPU.
I have read that the theory behind this is that there is about the same
amount of mail going in one direction between two countries as there is
going the other direction. So each country pays for delivering the mail
from the other country with the extra money it gets for mail going to
the other country.
= Eric Bustad
AT&T Bell Laboratories
Holmdel NJ 07733-1988
(201)949-6257
e...@ho3cad.ATT.COM or ihnp4!ho3cad!ekb
Henry Spencer
a "you deliver my mail and I'll deliver yours" arrangement, in which the
destination country handles delivery for free, in return for the source
country doing the same for mail headed the other way. These agreements
are still essentially in effect, although there have been more recent
supplementary agreements covering compensation payments in the event that
the traffic is seriously asymmetrical.
--
Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
{allegra,ihnp4,decvax,pyramid}!utzoo!henry
Chris Lewis
>In article <12...@ttrdc.UUCP> le...@ttrdc.UUCP (Daniel R. Levy) writes:
>>Anyhow, what I am wondering is whether, and how, the postal delivery system
>>of a foreign country is reimbursed for its part in accepting, transporting,
>>and delivering a piece of international paper, or parcel, mail which has
>>originated in the USA, and for that matter, vice versa. Are there treaties
>>and procedures governing this, or what?
yup, well answered by Alan Jeddeloh - no comment from me.
>... Actually, the rates from the US to Canada are the same for
>the 1st ounce, and only 1 cent higher for additional ounces (18 vs 17
>cents).
Unfortunately it's not reciprocal - domestic rates: $.34, Canada to US
$.65.
--
Chris Lewis
Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {utzoo|utcs|yetti|genat|seismo}!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
Phone: (416)-474-1955
Werner Uhrig
it would greatly surprise me if the East Germans don't make the West Germans
pay for delivering their mail. They charge for everything else: use of their
roads and tracks and waterways. Of course, they don't let hardly anyone out
to use the ones in the west and gifts flow mainly only in one direction ....
If a West German goes to visit the East (don't know about other nationalities),
he has to exchange a certain amount of money for every day he plans to stay
there and at a ridiculous rate (25% of what I could get at a western bank)
and the amount is anything but trivial. but I am getting side-tracked ...
I would nearly expect that there is a totally uneven mail-flow to Mexico and
many other countries also and that those countries insist on getting
compensated.
Wayne A. Christopher
> If a West German goes to visit the East (don't know about other
> nationalities), he has to exchange a certain amount of money for every
> day he plans to stay there and at a ridiculous rate (25% of what I
> could get at a western bank) and the amount is anything but trivial.
> but I am getting side-tracked ...
As I remember, I had to exchange about $20 for the one day I was there, and
it seemed like a reasonable rate (although I could have gotten much more
by exchanging it "informally"...)
Wayne