Japan Post will increase postal fees and reclassify USA starting April 1, 2021

[Yavianice]

Japan Post will increase the shipping costs for all parcels starting April 1, 2021.

 

On top of that, USA, which was previously zone 2 (same zone as Europe), will now be zone 4 (USA zone), drastically increasing the prices.

 

All prices can be seen here https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/2021fee_change/index_en.html

All part of the Trump administrations "we will quit the UPU unless they increase postage into/out of the USA" stuff that happened last year btw. https://time.com/5687134/trump-universal-postal-union-deal/

Japan Post has not increased their postage fees since 1996. So I guess it's only fair.

Edited November 7, 2020 by Yavianice

[katoftw]

Not too bad really.

 

At lower weight, it is worse. At higher weight, it is better.

Edited November 7, 2020 by katoftw

[cteno4]

Yes the light weight packages were pretty ridiculously low priced for SAL for a very long time. I saved many train sets worth of savings with it over the last couple of decades. But I guess that has to come to an end. Still reasonable for international shipping. It’s astoundingly expensive to export even a small package from the us now. Even first class envelopes are getting bounced if much of anything at all in them thickness and stiffness wise.

 

even if politics normalize some I doubt prices will ever go down once having been raised.

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Japan Post has announced  a Tentative Extra Charge for EMS from June 1, 2021 which was published April 15, 2021.  The notice of April 1 did not mention EMS. (Found the EMS notice on the Ami Ami web page.)

 

EMS to the United States will resume June 1, 2021. Other countries will depend on sufficient transport capacity.

 

https://www.post.japanpost.jp/int/2021fee_change/ems_en.html

Edited May 2, 2021 by bill937ca

[miyakoji]

Thanks for the reminder about this, Bill :).  I exchange small gifts with one person in Japan a few times a year, which we haven't been doing for a while now.  It had all kinda slipped my mind.  Gotta check on the status of US->Japan shipping.