Dig into the small print on a Courier's website and you'll see that both the collection and delivery points must be unfeasibly close to one of their distribution 'hubs', and a pick-up is often not available the same day. Royal Mail Special Delivery offers next day delivery by 1pm, but is only available within the UK, and a 'next day' international courier service does not exist in practice. Whilst in most of the developed world this isn't an issue, if you live in a country where the domestic postal carrier is slow, unreliable or insecure ( parts of the Middle East, Africa or South America for example ), you may wish to consider a fully insured end-to-end Courier such as DHL or UPS for items of importance or intrinsic value.

Final delivery, however, then becomes the responsibility of the destination country's domestic postal service. Royal Mail offer the most cost effective option for forwarding mail abroad, and both their International Standard and International Signed-For & Tracked services are much cheaper than a Private Courier. royal mail or courier? our quick guide to the options available Please note: Our system produces postage labels with EXACTLY the content and layout that you enter as the 'forwarding address' in your account control panel, so remember to including a recipient's name, if one is required. In all cases, your mail is consolidated into a tamper proof postal bag to protect your privacy and the postage is debited from your Postage Fund. Similarly, if you have a Demand despatch sent using a different service, your normal sending instructions remain unchanged.

Use your secure controls to tell us whether to forward your mail on to you Daily, Weekly or Monthly, and when to send by Royal Mail, Signed-for or by Private Courier! You can also request a forwarding on Demand and your mail will be despatched within 24 hours, without affecting your normal schedule, even if your account is otherwise set to Hold. Mail forwarding is free, all you pay is the onward postage at cost! sending options

Uk to us mail forwarding service