International Mail
About Electronic Advance Data (EAD)For enhanced security and efficient customs clearance, when sending goods, it has become obligatory to transmit data to all countries/territories in advance, such as the sender's name/address and the contents, converted into an electronic format called Electronic Advance Data (EAD).
＜To European countries/territories＞
Items to European countries/territories
Customs clearance in European countries/territories is based on EAD to determine whether an import is acceptable or not and to calculate customs duties or other taxes. Therefore, if the data entered is incorrect, such as incorrect contents details or incorrect values, fixing the labels and customs declaration forms by hand is not admissible and items may be delayed in customs or subject to excessive customs duties.
To avoid these issues, if the printed labels contain mistakes in the contents or the values, please recreate the labels and enter the correct information.
For a detailed list of countries/territories, please check here.
Notice to Businesses: Please check here (Japanese only) concerning international mail shipping using the Import One Stop Shop (IOSS) system.
For sending EAD
Please use International My Page Service (free of charge). If you use this service from a personal computer or a smartphone to create the label, EAD are transmitted automatically.
More information about this service is here.
Postal services requiring EAD
EMS (for goods)*, international parcels, small packets, international e-Packet Light, special mailbags for printed matter and other letter-post items containing articles with a declarable value that may be subject to customs inspection.
- EMS containing goods and/or papers with a declarable value.
Kinds of data sent
- Name and address of the sender
- Name and address of the recipient
- Description of contents*
- Total weight
- Mail item number (inquiry number)
- Other information entered in International Mail My Page Service
- Effective Friday, September 22, 2023, we recommend sending information such as HS codes of mail contents in the form of EAD when sending to certain European countries/territories (EU member countries, etc.). If such information is not sent or incorrect information is sent, it may result in delays or returns of postal items as decided by custom authorities of the destination country/territory. For further details, please click here.
Treatment of postal items without EAD
The requirement for transmitting EAD is getting stronger worldwide. Therefore, for the types of postal services requiring EAD, items without EAD cannot be accepted.
Japan Post may contact senders to ask for additional information for EAD of their postal items.
If the customs authority in a destination country judges that an item has insufficient/inaccurate EAD, a post office* in Japan may contact the sender by email or letter to ask for further or accurate information based on the requirements of the destination country.
When the post office contacts the sender, they will mention the mailing date, destination country, item number or other information about the item. Please confirm the information with the sender's copy. If such information is not mentioned, it may be a suspicious contact pretending to represent the post office. Please be careful of such contacts.
Please also note that we cannot refund the postage on international mail items that are delayed owing to the determination made by the destination customs authority. Please input accurate and detailed data when making labels with International My Page Service.
- The post office contacting the sender may be the one where the item was mailed or a different post office.
