How much is a stamp in Australia?

What a stamp costs now, and the next change

The $1.85 price is recent: on 1 September 2026 the basic postage rate went up by 15 cents, from $1.70 to $1.85; large letters went from $3.40 to $3.70 (up to 125 g) and from $5.10 to $5.55 (125 to 250 g). As for the next rise, no change has been announced yet.

What does exist is an outlook: with its 2026 price notification Australia Post published an indicative basic postage rate of $2.05 for FY2028 and $2.25 for FY2029, which it says is subject to change and will only be confirmed after its annual planning and approval process. FY2028 is the financial year from July 2027 to June 2028, so treat those figures as a direction rather than a price you can plan around. As soon as a new price is confirmed, the "next change" line in the table above will show it.

Small or large letter: size decides before weight

Inside Australia there are two letter formats, and the envelope's size settles the price before its weight does. A small letter is anything within these limits: up to 13 × 24 cm, 5 mm thick, 250 g (DL and DLX envelopes). Up to those limits one $1.85 stamp pays for a single card and a thick letter alike, and postcards are just as simple: a postcard sent within Australia without an envelope goes at the small letter price.

An A4 letter folded in three in a DL envelope (110 × 220 mm) is the everyday case: a sheet of ordinary printer paper weighs about 5 g and the envelope about the same, so even ten pages come to only around 55 g. What catches people out is thickness, because each folded sheet is three layers of paper, so somewhere past ten sheets a DL letter can reach the thickness limit and become a large letter; measure a thick one with a ruler and pay the large-letter price if it is close.

Cards hit the size rule in another way: a square card in a 150 mm envelope is wider than a small letter may be and costs $3.70, while one in a C6 envelope (114 × 162 mm) goes for $1.85. Anything bigger than a small letter is a large letter, even a C5 envelope (162 × 229 mm) holding an A4 sheet folded once, and these limits apply: up to 26 × 36 cm, 2 cm thick, 500 g (C5 and B4 envelopes).

Large letters are priced in three weight steps: in a C4 envelope (229 × 324 mm) of about 15 to 20 g, a fifteen-page report sent flat weighs roughly 95 g and stays in the first step at $3.70, while thirty pages come to about 170 g and cost $5.55. The calculator above estimates the weight for you but can't measure thickness and adds no safety margin, so put a letter close to a step on the kitchen scale; it also shows which stamps make up each price.

Regular, Priority and Registered Post

Every price so far is for Regular delivery, the standard service. When a letter has to arrive sooner, there is a faster option: to send a letter Priority, you stick one Priority label next to the stamp; a Priority label costs $1.30 and is sold at any Post Office and online, singly or in booklets of five. The label comes on top of the postage, so a small letter sent Priority costs $3.15 in total and a large letter in the first weight step $5.00.

What the label buys is time, because Australia Post estimates 3 to 5 business days within the same state and 4 to 7 business days interstate for Regular letters, and up to 3 business days within the same state and up to 4 interstate for Priority letters. That makes Priority worth it for something with a deadline, such as a signed form that has to be back by a set day; for everything else, Regular is the better value.

Registered Post is about proof rather than speed. You add a Registered Post label for $6.30 to the normal postage, so a small letter sent registered costs $8.15 in all, and the fee buys security: Registered Post within Australia includes tracking, signature on delivery and compensation up to $100; Extra Cover up to $5,000 costs $2.50 for each further $100. That makes it the usual choice for documents you may later need to prove you sent, such as a final reminder for an unpaid invoice, as long as you hand the letter over at the counter, because Australia Post gives proof of posting for Registered Post only when the item is handed over at a Post Office counter with a lodgement form or receipt.

Letters and cards to other countries

Overseas letters go by Economy Air, the standard way to send a letter abroad, and the price depends on which of five zones the country is in, from New Zealand in Zone 1 to the rest of the world in Zone 5. A small letter, with the same size limits as at home, costs $4.40 to the USA or Canada, and the table above gives the price and stamp for every other zone. Large letters cost one price per zone up to the weight limit, for example $16.15 for an A4 document sent flat to London. All of these prices assume the international stamps the table lists, because international postage is GST-free and Australia Post sells GST-free stamps for it; if you use domestic stamps on international mail, you must put on 10 percent more than the published price. So if you only have ordinary $1.85 stamps at home, buy international ones for overseas mail or allow for the extra.

Cards to most countries have a cheaper route: a greeting card or Christmas card sealed in an envelope marked 'Card only', or your own postcard, costs $3.50 to any of Australia Post's 220+ overseas destinations by Economy Air, up to 260 × 360 mm, 5 mm thick and 50 g. A birthday card to London, sealed in a C6 envelope marked Card only, therefore goes for $3.50 instead of the $4.70 small-letter price, and the card stamp saves money in the same way to every zone except New Zealand. There a card in an ordinary small envelope is cheaper as a small letter at $3.45, so the card price only pays off for a card too big for a small envelope, which would otherwise cost $11.70 as a large letter.

Christmas 2026: card stamps, posting dates and labels

Christmas cards inside Australia get their own lower rate, with conditions attached: in November and December a Christmas or other seasonal greeting card sent within Australia costs 65c (or $1.30 for a large card up to 125 g), if it is sealed in an envelope marked Card Only. Outside those two months, or without the marking, a card costs the same as any other letter of its size, from $1.85.

The last Regular posting dates for cards inside Australia are 18 December 2026 for cards going interstate and 21 December 2026 within your own state. Both assume a city address at each end, because Australia Post's Christmas cut-off dates are for sending to and from metro locations; it says items to and from regional and rural areas will likely take longer, so give a card to or from a country town a few extra days.

Cards going overseas have to leave much earlier, and the Economy Air dates also apply to International Post Registered letters:

The rest of the world closes first, on 24 November 2026. The group rows don't cover every country in their region, though, because Australia Post’s per-country Christmas table gives Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Gibraltar and the Faroe Islands the 24 November 2026 date for Economy Air letters, not the date for major European destinations. Unless your country is named in the table, look up its own date on Australia Post's Christmas page, and if you can't check, post by 24 November 2026. Like the dates inside Australia, these assume you post from a city, so allow a few extra days from a country town. Senders in three parts of the country need to post earlier still: mail going overseas from South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory travels interstate first, so Australia Post says to add 2 business days for Express items and 5 for Standard and Economy items, which in practice means posting that many business days before the date in the table. And check the destination before you write at all, because Australia Post's Christmas 2026 dates list Economy Air letters to some countries, including Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Kenya and Iran, as suspended.

If your card list is long, the addressing is the slow part. The button on this page opens an A4 sheet of address labels, and with a free account you can use mail merge: import your list from Excel, a CSV file or a Google Sheets export and print one label for each address, as the guide to printing address labels from a spreadsheet shows step by step. For the layout of an Australian address, see how to address an envelope. The labels carry the address only, so the stamps still come from Australia Post.