Sending/Receiving Mail and Packages in Spain
Posted by The Expatriator
Information on sending packages and mail home, particularly to the USA and Canada. Shares the generally negative experiences with the postal service in Spain and how to avoid these problems in the future.
Remember that stores with the big brown-and-yellow “tabaco” signs are estancos, and all estancos sell stamps (same price as the post office). Los Correos is the name for the Spanish mail system.
USA: Mail from the USA generally takes about 7-10 days (although recently I received a package after only 4 days). For express delivery from the USA, don’t use FedEx. They don’t have offices here, so they pass it on to MRW, who can take 3 days just within Spain! Using the regular post office’s Priority/Express mail is cheaper and faster. Another alternative is UPS (phone: 900 10 24 10)—they got a document from Sevilla to Manhattan (door-to-door) in 23 hours.
Canada: I’ve had few packages sent without problems. Customs have held packages for weeks, sometimes threatening to send it home or destroy it, only to complete the delivery later anyway. One of the packages sent to me was returned to the sender, utterly shredded and destroyed having fallen victim to customs’ curiousity over one package of gummy bears. The contents were worth hundreds of dollars and there was ultimately no compensation.



The Expatriator said:
Jesse, if you mean to send by regular correos then use the link provided by big brian below. Othwrwise just call dhl or ups and ask them to give you a quote. Their websites will tell you this too.
Los correos will be cheaper but slower, my last box sent home with them arrived broken with missing contents. Then again, I also marked it fragile which, as I hear, is like a dare.