Royal Mail last posting dates for Christmas 2026

The last posting dates for Christmas 2026, service by service

Royal Mail publishes its last recommended posting dates every autumn, and there isn't one last posting date for Christmas 2026 but one for each service. Each is the last day you can post with that service and still expect the item to arrive before Christmas Day, and the table lists them from the earliest to the latest. Post earlier if you can, because these dates are a final call rather than a target.

The word ‘recommended’ matters, because these dates are Royal Mail's estimate of what it can deliver in its busiest weeks rather than a promise. A card posted on the last day will usually arrive in time, but not always, and Special Delivery Guaranteed is the only service on the list that comes with a guarantee. Each date is worked back from Christmas using how long the service normally takes, which explains the order: 2nd Class is slower than 1st Class, so its date comes first, and Tracked 48, the slower of the two tracked parcel services, closes before Tracked 24 does.

Posting by a date means before the last collection that day, not before midnight, so check the collection time on the post box or ask at the Post Office counter. The weekend matters this year because Christmas Day 2026 is a Friday, so the last weekend before Christmas falls in the final days for posting. A card dropped into a post box after Saturday's last collection won't move until Monday, and many boxes have no Sunday collection at all.

Which service to choose when you're running late

The simplest rule is to use the cheapest service whose date hasn't passed. Up to and including 18 December 2026, a 2nd Class stamp at £0.91 is enough for a card in an ordinary envelope that stays within the Letter size; after that, switch to 1st Class stamps at £1.80, which still work until 21 December 2026. A big or thick card is a Large Letter, so it needs a Large Letter stamp instead, £1.55 for 2nd Class or £3.30 for 1st Class, as the section on card postage below explains. Presents can go with the tracked parcel services, which you pay for when you send the parcel rather than with stamps, and which let you follow it online. Once the 1st Class date has passed, cards will most likely arrive after Christmas whatever stamp you use, and Special Delivery Guaranteed, up to 23 December 2026, is the last way to get something there in time.

Here's how that works for cards posted on the 19th, which is a Saturday. The 2nd Class date, 18 December 2026, was the day before, so Royal Mail no longer expects 2nd Class to make it in time. Use 1st Class stamps instead, or a 1st Class Large Letter stamp for a big or thick card, as long as the cards will be collected by the 1st Class date, 21 December 2026. If your post box has already had its last Saturday collection, the cards go out with Monday's, so check that Monday is still on or before that date. A present posted that Saturday can still go by Tracked 48, because it's the last day for that service (19 December 2026); if it waits until the following week, Tracked 24 runs until 21 December 2026 and Special Delivery Guaranteed until 23 December 2026.

Christmas card postage: Letter or Large Letter

Most Christmas cards are A6 cards in C6 envelopes (114 × 162 mm) or A5 cards in C5 envelopes (162 × 229 mm), and both envelopes fit within Royal Mail's Letter size. They're light, too: an A6 card in its envelope weighs around 15 to 20 g and an A5 one around 30 g, so the stamp usually comes down to thickness and size rather than weight. Check your card against the two formats Royal Mail uses within the UK, starting with the smaller one:

• Up to 24 × 16.5 cm, 5 mm thick, 100 g: that's a Letter, which takes one 1st Class or one 2nd Class stamp, depending on the speed you've chosen.
• Up to 35.3 × 25 cm, 2.5 cm thick, 750 g: that's a Large Letter, which needs a 1st Class Large Letter stamp (£3.30) or a 2nd Class Large Letter stamp (£1.55) at the lightest weight, with more postage for heavier ones.

Thickness is where Christmas cards catch people out. A wooden decoration, a ribbon bow or a chunky badge on the front can take a card over the Letter thickness, and size is the other trap: an A4 card in a C4 envelope or a 20 cm square card is too big for a Letter, so both become Large Letters even though they're light. If you put an ordinary stamp on a Large Letter, Royal Mail treats it as underpaid, and the person you sent it to may get a card through the door asking them to pay the difference plus a fee. If you're still buying envelopes, the C6 envelope page explains what fits the most common card size.

Royal Mail's Christmas stamps work exactly like ordinary ones. The 1st and 2nd Class Christmas stamps sold in books are marked 1st or 2nd instead of a price, so each is worth whatever that class costs on the day you post it, and they cost the same per stamp as the everyday stamps. At the moment a 1st Class stamp costs £1.80 and a 2nd Class stamp £0.91, the prices that have applied since 7 April 2026; the UK stamp prices page has the full list, including heavier Large Letters.

Sending Christmas cards and presents abroad

Post going abroad needs far more time than the UK dates allow. Royal Mail's Christmas 2026 announcement gives last posting dates for UK services only, with no dates by country for mail going abroad, so post international items as early as you can; Royal Mail's country guides on royalmail.com cover sending to each destination. Distant places such as Australia and New Zealand take longest, so cards for family there are the ones to write first, and anything for abroad is safest in the post well before the UK dates come round.

A card in a C6 or C5 envelope goes abroad as an International Standard letter for £3.60, as long as it stays within the Letter size and weight. A thick or big card becomes an International Large Letter, priced by destination: from £3.80 to Europe, £4.60 to the USA and £4.60 to Australia or New Zealand. Presents are best taken to a Post Office counter, where the staff weigh them and tell you the price and the paperwork for that country. Write the country in capitals on the last line of the address; the guide on how to address an envelope shows examples.

Printing a stack of card envelopes or labels

If you send thirty or forty cards, writing the addresses is the slow part, and a spreadsheet can do it for you. Keep your Christmas list in Excel or Google Sheets, or export your contacts as a CSV file, then import it and print one address label per row on an A4 label sheet (21 per sheet, for example) or one address straight onto each C6 or C5 envelope. Importing a list needs a free account, which includes 5 batch exports a month, enough for a Christmas card run; the guide to printing address labels from Excel covers preparing the list.

The envelope layout leaves the stamp corner free for your Christmas stamp. A script font such as Great Vibes or Dancing Script makes the envelope look festive, but keep the recipient's address in a clear font so it's easy to read, and save the script for your return address or a greeting. Most home printers take C6 and C5 envelopes, and if yours is fussy, labels are the easier route. OpenLabelMaker doesn't sell or print postage, so you still need to buy the stamps.