Help with your international mail

You can check the current status of your shipment here.

Due to national or international events in the respective destinations, longer transit times may occur in some cases. We can usually only process your investigation request once the shipment has arrived in the destination country. 

Please check the situation in the destination country before dispatch.

International mailing is based on an association of postal unions that have agreed to ensure cross-border transport. This means that we at DHL Group do not transport your mail to the destination country ourselves, but hand it over to the foreign postal company of the destination country. From this point, your mail will be forwarded by the national postal company to the recipient. The transport time also takes into account possible import processes, including customs clearance of the shipments, in the destination countries. 

If your shipment takes considerably longer than usual, please proceed as follows:

1. Check whether the standard transit time has indeed been exceeded.
2. Are there any current peculiarities in the destination country that could cause a delay? 
3. If the transit time has been exceeded and there are no regional peculiarities in the destination country, start an online investigation enquiry:
4. Investigation enquiries can be started for
   a. Registered Mail International
   b. Registered Mail Value
   c. Registered Return Receipt International
   d. Personal Registered Mail International

Usually, the information about the delivery of your mail item is available in the shipment tracking on the day of delivery.

Under certain circumstances, however, this can take a few days because, e.g. , signed documents have to be sent to our scanning centre to be processed there. This is often the case when Registered Mails are delivered to recipients who regularly receive a large number of Registered Mails e.g. authorities, banks and insurance companies.

We therefore recommend to check the shipment status again the following day, to see if the delivery is not yet shown in the shipment tracking.

Your shipment is already on its way for more than the regular transit time

and you still have no indication from the recipient that he or she has received the shipment?

If so, you can initiate an investigation enquiry for a Registered Mail international as the sender of an export item.

According to the shipment tracking, your international shipment has already been delivered, but you do not know where, then it is best to proceed as follows:

For shipments from abroad to Germany:

1. On the notification card you received, you will find a remark at which neighbours address or post office branch the shipment was deposited. Please note that shipments can only be collected from the post office branch on the following day.
2. If you still weren’t able to collect the item on the following day, please submit a search request online after a waiting period of 10 days so that we can look for your shipment.

For shipments from Germany to foreign countries: 

1. Check whether the standard transit time has indeed been exceeded.
2. Are there any current peculiarities in the destination country that could cause a delay? 
3. If the transit time has been exceeded and there are no regional peculiarities in the destination country, start an online investigation enquiry:
4. Investigation enquiries can be started for
   a. Registered Mail International
   b. Registered Value Mail
   c. Registered Return Receipt International
   d. Personal Registered Mail International

If the content of your international Registered Mail or Registered Value is damaged or part of the content is missing, it is best to proceed as follows:

1. report the damage to us immediately. The best way to do this is to use our online contact form. 
2. make sure you notify us of the damage within 7 days.

After the damage has been assessed by the responsible department, you will receive the result of the assessment approx. 10 days later.

The exact reason for your return is usually indicated directly on the shipment.

Possible reasons for a return can be:

• Insufficient or missing information on the customs declaration or declaration in another language.
• Recipient cannot be found at the address given
• Recipient has moved and the consent to pass on the new address is not available.
• Recipient refuses to accept the shipment 
• Recipient has not collected the shipment
• Maximum size/weight exceeded
• Ident code missing/damaged

If the return is considered wrong, please proceed as follows:

1. report the unjustified return of your international shipment to us online.
2. we will then check the reason for your return.

Please also keep in mind that there may be particularities in the respective destination areas, which is why a delivery is not possible everywhere. You can find current information about delivery stops here.

The Special Drawing Right (SDR) is a unit of account of the International Monetary Fund.

SDRs are used in the international transport industry primarily to have a common "currency" for liability regulations.

Currently, 30 SDR = 37.79 EUR.