Packages to the United States
This year there are some changes for packages from Japan to the US. As of January 1, 2021, packages with handwritten labels are no longer allowed under the US STOP Act. The Synthetics Trafficking and Overdose Prevention (STOP) Act is a US Federal law about counterterrorism and control of drugs. It requires customs data on postal items to be sent to US Customs in advance.
What does that mean for people in Japan who want to send packages to the United States? It means we have to use the International My Page Service to send Electronic Advance Data (EAD) and to create a label. The data sent includes the sender's name and address, the recipient's name and address, names of contents, gross weight, and number of items.
I have not tried to use this system yet, but Cynthia, who blogs at wabi-sabiquilts.blogspot.com wrote that it is a "nothing is easy" experience.
Another Japan Post change is that International Postage Rates will be going up on April 1, 2021. The last time these rates were revised was March 1996. The United States will become its own zone (Zone 4) and will see the largest increases.
9 comments:
Pamela: Wow that is something, but I am sure it is a way of keeping track of illegal items coming into the USA.
I hope it gets easy to post a package in the future.
Have a sweet day
Catherine
It looks like everything, everywhere, will be going up in April 2021.
Our food prices have almost doubled lately!!
I wonder about the postal services world wide, they complain people are not using the service and them out the prices up! Makes no sense to me. I guess the labelling system will stop some problems until people find a way around it again.
I can't really see how that is going to stop drug trafficking. It sounds like just a way of making life more difficult for ordinary people.
I’ve been using the new My Page service and find it easy to navigate. I like that I can print the label out at the post office and needn’t print it at home. Some helpful hints I’ve learned are,
1. Do all the input on your cell phone if you want to print the label at the post office. If you register using your computer, you have to print the label yourself at home and get plastic wrappers in advance.
2. Weigh each item before packaging and memo it.
3. Consider the size of the label when affixing stamps. I now put my stamps along the narrow end of the envelope rather than along the upper right corner.
I don't really know how or why this is to be done. Life is becoming more difficult and the mail is becoming slower.
I have read about it but yet to try it. Thanks to Cynthia and Crafty Tokyo Mama for the research and advice.
That's unfortunate, especially if people don't have access to a computer or printer.
Thanks for the heads up - I'm sending stuff to the US from time to time, and it sounds like those changes will concern all international mail going there!
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