LetterAgent
Mail physical letters by just asking your AI assistant.
Home > Guides > Mailing to Europe
One honest boundary first: LetterAgent mails to US and Canadian addresses only, so this is a general guide, not a product page. Use international postage from your own country's postal service, write the destination country in capitals on the last address line, and expect noticeably longer transit than domestic mail. The part that actually causes delays is addressing format.
European addressing differs from North American habits in a few specific ways:
| Rule | Detail |
|---|---|
| Country in capitals, last line | Write the destination country in full capital letters on its own final line: FRANCE, GERMANY, UNITED KINGDOM. Don't abbreviate; postal sorting systems match full country names. |
| Postal code placement varies | In many European countries the postal code comes before the city, not after: German addresses read "10115 Berlin", French ones "75001 Paris". Ask the recipient for their address exactly as they write it locally and copy it. |
| Copy the recipient's own formatting | The most reliable approach: ask your recipient to send you their address as it appears on their own mail, and reproduce it exactly. Local conventions (house number before or after the street name, floor designations) differ by country. |
| Return address | Put your full return address, including "USA" or "CANADA" as the country, in the top-left corner. Without a complete return address, an undeliverable international letter usually gets discarded, not returned. |
You'll need international postage from whichever country's postal service you're mailing from: a domestic stamp won't cover it. In the US that's USPS First-Class Mail International; in Canada, Canada Post's international letter rates. You can buy it at a post office counter or print it online. One practical note: postal rates for international letters are charged by weight bands, and the first band covers a standard one-ounce letter: most single-page letters fall in it, but if you're mailing several pages, weigh it or have the counter check.
Plan qualitatively: longer than domestic, with meaningful variation by destination. Major European capitals are generally faster than remote regions. Don't anchor to a number of days: weather, customs backlogs, and local postal quirks all add variability. For anything time-sensitive (event invitations, documents with deadlines), send it much earlier than feels necessary, and consider the postal service's tracked international option if you want delivery confirmation rather than guessing.
UK addresses have their own quirk: the postcode format looks nothing like a North American postal code: "SW1A 1AA" is a real format, with letters and numbers mixed, and the outward code (before the space) narrows it to a district. Get the full postcode right, including the space; UK sorting is heavily postcode-driven, and a wrong outward code can route your letter to the wrong city. The country line should read UNITED KINGDOM, not England or Britain: postal systems match the sovereign name.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it's printed and mailed.
LetterAgent is a working name. Prices include print, postage, and our service fee. US prices in USD, Canadian prices in CAD (Canadian prices exclude applicable sales tax, added at checkout). Currently in private testing.
Need help? Ask your assistant: it can check a job's status any time. If it ever can't handle something: hello@getletteragent.com