Service Updates

Last updated: 17th of May 2022

Updates have been provided for: France, Greece and Ireland

Welcome to our live service update page for Europe. Below is a round-up of any issues that may be impacting our services to and from destinations in Europe. We keep this page as up-to-date as possible, with information supplied to Parcelforce from our partners. 

Important Notices:

HS Code Update January 2022
On January 1st 2022, the World Customs Organisation (WCO), an independent intergovernmental body that serves as the voice of the customs community, implemented the 7th edition of its Harmonised System. This means the data requirements will change in areas including HS codes and duty and VAT rates, as well as having implications for prohibited and restricted goods screening. For a full-list of updates please visit https://www.gov.uk/guidance/uk-goods-classification-2022-tariff-stop-pre... or visit the HMRC Trade Tariff tool here: https://www.gov.uk/trade-tariff  for more information, in order to minimise delays through customs or items being returned to sender.

Customs declarations
All customers need to complete and attach a customs declaration (CP72 and/or CN23) when sending goods to all destinations abroad. Otherwise items may be delayed or returned. To avoid delays/returns due to customs compliance please see our help pages:

• For retail customers: https://www.parcelforce.com/help-and-advice/sending/customs-advice
• For international business contract customers, electronic customs data is mandatory and items without data may be delayed or returned. Find out how to become data compliant at https://www.parcelforce.com/electronic-customs-data.

Please note:  Each destination is responsible for setting their own import controls on restricted goods. Customers are advised to identify whether items being imported into a specific destination will require licences/certificates or incur additional charges. To identify specific Country requirements, please visit our individual country pages here https://www.parcelforce.com/worldwide-directory

Incident one:
Items posted to Bulgaria are still experiencing customs delays as a result of changes to the EU’s VAT rules for items from non-EU destinations from 1st July. 

Incident two:
Bulgarian post has informed that they are still experiencing the IT issues that have been ongoing since the 16th of April 2022, due to a cyberattack. Currently, the IT systems still remain down. As a result, the post will not be able to provide tracking details and is unable to meet delivery standards until the IT systems operation has resumed. The post is continuing to work to resolve this issue and we will provide an update once this becomes available.

Items posted to Estonia are still experiencing customs delays as a result of changes to the EU’s VAT rules for items from non-EU destinations from 1st July. 

Our service to Ireland is operating as normal. However, items that require the payment of import taxes by the recipient may take longer to be delivered as payment is required before items are released from Irish customs.

Please note: Delivered Duties Unpaid items sent to Ireland are handled as follows:
•Where a mobile number and /or email is provided, the recipient will receive a text and / or email and a letter with the amount of tax to pay plus An Post’s processing fee.
•Where just the address has been provided, the recipient will receive a letter.

In both situations the recipient will receive instructions on how to pay and will have 16 working days to make the payment before the item is returned. The pay by date is included in the customer notification.All items are held in the Dublin Mail Centre Campus before being released, once payment is received. If payment is not received by the payment due date or the customer rejects the item then it is returned to sender.

Incident one
Due to a technical issue, IOSS items sent to the Netherlands before the 9th of February may be charged duties. Any impacted items are being held in customs until the charges have been paid, however the Netherlands Post will refund these charges. If the Netherlands Post do not refund these charges, you can claim these back via the Post NL customer service page here: https://www.postnl.nl/en/customer-service/international-shipments/object... . Please note, this issue was quickly detected and rectified meaning that any IOSS items sent to the Netherlands after the 9th of February were not impacted.

Global Express Service is currently suspended until further notice. Shipments already in transit will be temporarily held in our network.

Russia can be reached via our Global Priority service. 

Latest update
We are still despatching postal items to Russia. We are continually monitoring the situation and will provide an update if there are any changes to our service moving forward.

Customers sending goods (including low value consignments) to the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla now need to electronically report these items to the Spanish customs. To do this, items must be accompanied by the necessary electronic customs data and compliant customs declarations (CN22/CN23). Items that do not fulfil these requirements will be manually processed which is likely to lead to delays and in some cases held until the recipient can be contacted in order to provide any missing information and/or in the case of certain products any supplementary documentation that may be required.

Please note: IOSS can be used to send items into mainland Spain and the Balearic Islands but not into the Canaries, Ceuta and Melilla.

Due to the ongoing situation in Ukraine, Ukrainian airspace is still closed. We are still accepting items for Ukraine as normal, however please be advised that deliveries to all parts of the country are subject to unpredictable delays. We are using road routes into Ukraine working with our postal partners and continue to work with the Ukrainian postal service (Ukrposhta) to ensure we can operate a service to Ukraine.

Ukrainian Post advised that some regions in particular do not have regular connection with Kyiv, such as Luhansk region, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kramatorsk, Kherson and Mykolayiv. We will provide further updates as soon as we receive them.

Global Express suspension
Service is currently suspended until further notice.  Shipments already in transit will be temporarily held in our network.

Ukraine can be reached via our Global Priority service. 

Latest Update
The Ukrainian postal service has provided an update that road access for postal exchanges with Ukrposhta’s centre in Kyiv is severely limited, some international mail processing operations have been moved to Lviv. Longer transit times are to be expected because of queues at the border and difficult road connections inside Ukraine. Ukrposhta remains committed to maintaining its postal operations, but will not be able to guarantee compliance with the agreed standards.

Additional information on open post offices and their working hours is updated daily on Ukrposhta’s webpage at: offices.ukrposhta.ua. with further update to be provided when available from the Post.

There are 24 delivery regions in Ukraine (Oblasts) and we are currently unable to deliver to 3 of these;

Donetsk Oblast - postcodes starting 83xxx to 87xxx - including cities of Donetsk and Mariupol

Luhansk Oblast - postcodes starting 91xxx to 94xxx - including cities of Luhansk and Krasnyi Luch

Crimea (annexed by Russia in 2014) - postcodes starting 95xxx to 99xxx - including Simferopol and Sevastopol