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Cheapest Way to Send a Parcel to Australia From the UK
Royal Mail, a courier, or a gift ordered inside Australia? One 2kg parcel compared on cost, delivery time, customs paperwork and risk, with prices checked on 25 October 2026.
The short answer
Cheapest Way to Send a Parcel to Australia From the UK
The cheapest way to send a parcel to Australia from the UK is usually to post it yourself. On 25 October 2026 a 2kg parcel was from £22.59 with the courier Evri or £25.10 with Royal Mail International Tracked bought online, and a card is £3.60. Ordering from a business inside Australia swaps postage for a delivered price, and skips the customs form and the border.
The three ways to get a parcel to Australia
There are really only three. You can post it yourself with Royal Mail. You can book a courier, either directly or through a comparison site. Or you can order a gift from a business that already sits in Australia and let them deliver it locally. The first two put your parcel through international post and Australian border checks. The third doesn't, because nothing crosses a border.
Every price below is a "from" figure that we read on the provider's own page on 25 October 2026. Prices change, so check the page before you pay. Comparison sites quote live, so where we couldn't read a figure for your weight we haven't made one up.
A worked example: a 2kg gift parcel
Take a gift parcel of 2kg: a jumper, a paperback, a box of teabags and some shop-bought biscuits, in a box under 60cm long. Here's what each route looks like.
| Route | Cost | Time | Paperwork | Biggest risk |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail International Tracked, bought online | From £25.10 | Aim of 5 to 7 working days | Customs details entered when you buy, label printed at home | A hold at the border; compensation up to £50 is included |
| Royal Mail International Tracked, at a Post Office | £37.60 | Aim of 5 to 7 working days | Customs form filled in at the counter | The same border checks, with £12.50 more on the bill |
| Evri courier | From £22.59 | Aim of 7 to 13 days | Customs details entered when you book | The same border checks; £20 of cover is included |
| Order from a business in Australia | The delivered price at checkout; Same Skies delivery is free on every box and the price is on the product page | Same Skies: usually 2 to 5 business days after dispatch to most addresses | None | A normal domestic delay; regional and remote areas take longer |
Look at what the first three rows leave out: the jumper, the book, the box and the tape. Postage is only half the bill, so if you're buying the gift anyway, add the price of the contents to the postage before you compare it with a delivered price from an Australian business.
And look at the courier. On Evri's own page it undercuts Royal Mail by £2.51 on this parcel. That's a page showing its best case, so treat it as a reason to get a quote, not a promise.
Posting with Royal Mail: where the money goes
For goods and gifts the service to look at is International Tracked, up to 2kg. Bought online it was £12.35 for 250g, £15.85 for 500g, £19.40 for 1kg and £25.10 for 2kg, on Royal Mail's International Tracked page. We've put every weight band, plus the delivery aims, in our guide to sending a parcel to Australia from the UK.
A few quirks that save money:
- From 500g up, the cheap-sounding services cost more. Untracked International Standard was £26.20 online for 1kg and £36.45 for 2kg, so Tracked is the cheaper way to send a proper parcel as well as the safer one.
- International Economy isn't a bargain either. A 2kg parcel was £35.30 online, with a delivery aim that Royal Mail puts at up to 12 weeks.
- Tracked costs £25.10 for anything over 1kg and up to 2kg, so a 1.1kg parcel costs the same as a 2kg one. If you're over 1kg, you may as well fill the box.
- The Post Office counter charges more than buying online, £37.60 against £25.10 at 2kg. Buy online and drop it off or book a collection.
- Over 2kg you move to International Tracked Heavier: £38.85 for 3kg and £49.50 for 5kg online, up to £170.00 for 20kg.
Light things and cards
This is where posting wins outright, and it's only fair to say so. A card or letter up to 100g is £3.60 with International Standard, and no business in Australia can compete with that. A flat item that fits a large letter, up to 750g, was from £4.50 online by Standard, £8.75 at 250g. If it's light and flat, post it.
Couriers and comparison sites
Evri's UK to Australia page lists £10.59 for 250g and 500g, £15.69 for 1kg and £22.59 for 2kg, with tracking and £20 of cover included, which you can raise to £999. It takes parcels up to 15kg and aims to deliver in 7 to 13 days, or 5 to 10 with its International Priority upgrade, which it doesn't price on the page. At each of those weights it came in under Royal Mail International Tracked, but it's slower by its own aim and has less cover included than Royal Mail's £50.
Parcel2Go's Australia page says its shipping costs start at £11.10. It gives no weight and no date for that figure, so read it as the floor, not a quote for your parcel. Parcelforce lists globalpriority from £28.80 and globalexpress from £53.20, again as starting prices across destinations with no Australia figure. Its Australia page gives 5 to 9 working days for globalpriority and from 4 days for globalexpress. That's the route for something heavy or in a hurry, and the dearer one if you're not.
The honest way to compare is to put your exact weight and size into two or three quote pages and look at the price with the delivery aim next to it. Any price in a blog post, this one included, is a snapshot.
The paperwork and the border
This is the part nobody budgets for. Royal Mail's customs guidance asks for a description of each item, its value and weight, a tariff code and the country it came from, and says electronic customs data is mandatory. Its Australia guide says a CN22 covers items worth up to £270 and a CN23 anything above that. Buy online through Click and Drop and it creates the label for you.
Australia's Department of Agriculture says descriptions like "gift", "present" or "goods" aren't acceptable on a postal declaration. You list what each thing is and what it's made from, and the packing material too. It also says parcels are assessed by X-ray, detector dogs and manual inspection, and that anything that doesn't meet import conditions is destroyed or sent back to you. If an item can be treated instead, treatment costs A$94 an item, paid by the importer, which means the person you were trying to cheer up. The department's guidance on mailing goods and its list of what can be mailed have the detail.
On the money side, Australian Border Force says goods that arrive by mail with a declared or assessed value of AUD 1,000 or less are generally not subject to duties, taxes or charges at the border, unless they're alcohol. It also says gifts sent through the mail may still be assessed. Its importing by post or mail page was last updated on 20 October 2026. We go further in our guide to customs duty on gifts to Australia.
Some food in the box needs thought. The department allows commercially packaged chocolate, fully cooked and shelf-stable biscuits and cakes with no meat, and plain black or green tea in new, unopened packaging. It has specific rules for nuts, some seeds and spices, dried chillies and wheat, and Royal Mail won't carry perishable food, aerosols or Christmas crackers to Australia at all. Our guide to sending food gifts to Australia from the UK goes through the common ones. None of this is legal or tax advice, so check the current page for anything unusual.
When ordering inside Australia wins, and when it doesn't
It wins on time, because a parcel that starts in Australia skips the international leg and the border hold. It wins on paperwork, because a domestic delivery has no customs declaration. It wins on risk, because there's no biosecurity inspection of something that never arrives from overseas. And it wins near Christmas, when the posting dates get tight (more on that below).
That's how sending a gift to Australia from the UK works with Same Skies. Lewis and Jess pack every box by hand in Sydney, Monday to Friday, and send it with Australia Post, so it's a domestic Australian delivery and your gift never goes through customs. Delivery is free on every box and the price is on the product page. Prices are shown as a guide; you pay in Australian dollars and your bank converts at checkout.
The trade-offs are real. You choose from our boxes or build your own with six or eight gifts, and you can pick options like scents, colours and prints, but you can't swap items. The Hug Away From Home box has an A3 Matte Art Print, unframed, so it suits someone with wall space. Your words live behind a QR code on a premium card inside the box, so it isn't your handwriting.
It doesn't win when you want to send something specific from the UK: their favourite biscuits, a book you've signed, something your nan made. Only posting does that. It doesn't win for a card or anything light and flat, as the £3.60 above shows. And if the gift is already in your cupboard, posting it costs you only the postage. The best of both is often a posted card, £3.60, alongside a gift that's ordered from Australia.
Christmas: the dates that matter
Royal Mail's Christmas 2026 page, read on 25 October, lists UK last posting dates and nothing for international services. It says to post early, particularly for international deliveries. The last Australia dates it published were for Christmas 2024, in an archived copy of that page: International Standard by Tuesday 3 December with online postage (Tuesday 26 November at a Post Office), and tracked services by Saturday 7 December online (Friday 6 December at a Post Office). Those are a guide only, as the weekdays differ in 2026. We'd treat the end of November as your own deadline, and our Royal Mail Christmas posting tracker will show if Royal Mail adds Australia later.
Evri's page also warns that delivery can take longer around Australian public holidays, including 25 and 26 December, and recommends sending earlier.
A box ordered from Same Skies runs to a later clock. With standard free delivery, order by 11:59pm Sydney time on Tuesday 15 December for NSW, ACT, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia and Tasmania. That's 12:59pm UK time on the same day. WA is Monday 14 December, and the Northern Territory and regional or remote addresses are Thursday 10 December. Express is available at checkout. More in our guides to sending to Australia from the UK.
Build your own
Start with an empty box. Fill it with them.
Choose every piece yourself, pick a print that feels like them, then add your letter with a photo or video behind the QR card. We hand-pack it in Sydney and send it free.
- You choose every piece, and the print on the lid
- Your letter, plus a free photo or video behind the QR card
- Hand-packed in Sydney, free delivery Australia-wide
Questions people ask
What is the cheapest way to send a parcel to Australia from the UK?
For a 2kg parcel on 25 October 2026, Evri listed £22.59 and Royal Mail International Tracked was £25.10 online, so a courier can undercut the Post Office. For a card or a light flat item, Royal Mail International Standard from £3.60 is cheapest. Get a quote for your exact weight before you pay.
How much does it cost to post a 2kg parcel to Australia?
Royal Mail International Tracked was £25.10 online and £37.60 at a Post Office on 25 October 2026, with a delivery aim of 5 to 7 working days. Evri listed £22.59 with an aim of 7 to 13 days. Prices change, so check each page.
How long does a parcel take to get to Australia from the UK?
Royal Mail aims for 5 to 7 working days on International Tracked and 6 to 7 on International Standard, and Evri aims for 7 to 13 days. A biosecurity or customs hold can add time, and December is slower, so post by the end of November.
Is it cheaper to post a gift or buy one in Australia?
It depends on what you're sending. If the gift is already in your cupboard, posting costs only the postage. If you're buying it anyway, add the postage, box and customs form to the price of the contents and compare that with a delivered price from an Australian business, which has no customs form or border to cross.
Do I need a customs form to send a parcel to Australia?
Yes for goods. Royal Mail needs customs data for every item, and Australia's agriculture department doesn't accept 'gift' as a description, so list each item and what it's made from. A card that is only personal correspondence doesn't need a CN23, according to Royal Mail's customs guidance.
Skip the queue at the Post Office
Packed by hand in Sydney, delivered free across Australia, with your message, photo or video waiting behind a QR code on the card inside.
Send a gift to Australia from the UK