Skip to content
Coverage

Parcel delay

International postal items — Universal Postal Convention inquiry and indemnity

TreatyUPUUnverified — check before relying on it

Universal Postal Union (treaty regime)

Rule id
parcel.upu
Version
1.0.0
In force from
July 1, 2022
Last read against its sources
August 5, 2026
Countries bound
None listed — a treaty whose party states are set by accession

In plain language

What this regime says.

International postal items travel under the Universal Postal Convention. When one is lost, damaged or materially delayed, the inquiry is lodged with the designated postal operator of the country of POSTING, which pursues it through the UPU inquiry system. Indemnity is capped in special drawing rights and is modest unless insurance was bought at the time of posting.

Who is covered

Senders of international items carried between designated postal operators. Not commercial couriers — DHL Express, FedEx and UPS are governed by their own terms and by the Montreal and CMR conventions.

What you get

A formal inquiry, and indemnity within the Convention limits for registered, insured and parcel items. Ordinary uninsured mail attracts little or nothing.

Where claims go wrong

  • Contacting the destination country’s post office. The inquiry belongs with the operator you posted with.
  • Waiting past the inquiry period, which is short and strictly applied.
  • Expecting the value of the contents. Convention indemnity is a fixed cap, not an insurance payout.
  • As a buyer, pursuing the postal claim at all instead of claiming against the seller, whose liability is not capped by a treaty.
The official claim route

Authority

Every citation,
with its pinpoint.

A claim that cites “EU law” gets filed. A claim that cites Article 7(1)(c) gets answered. These are the exact coordinates this entry rests on.
  1. Universal Postal ConventionUniversal Postal Convention and its Regulations (Acts of the Universal Postal Union)URL verified 2026-08-05provisions on inquiries, liability and indemnity for registered, insured and parcel items

Sources

Where a figure is indexed, converted or published by a regulator rather than fixed in the instrument, the provenance is recorded separately. Anything marked as a modelled estimate is exactly that — a model, not a statutory number.

What it imposes

Clocks, defences and the ladder.

A rule module builds these while it evaluates, because a limitation period depends on which forum is open to you. What follows is the structure this regime produces — deliberately with no dates and no figures, because those belong to your facts rather than to the law.

Documents

What this regime can produce.

Every one of these is a document you send yourself, in your own name. Duesday never writes to anybody on your behalf and is never anyone’s agent.

The same claim type elsewhere

CMR Convention — international carriage of goods by road (8.33 SDR per kilogram)CMRTreaty — party states varyCMR Convention, Art. 23Confidence: highHague-Visby Rules — international carriage of goods by seaHAGUEVISBYTreaty — party states varyHague-Visby Rules, Art. IV r. 5(a)Confidence: highMontreal Convention 1999 — international carriage of cargo by airMONTREALTreaty — party states varyMontreal Convention 1999, Art. 22(3)Confidence: highEuropean Union — delivery rights on consumer sales (Directive 2011/83/EU, Art. 18)EUSupranational — 30 countriesDirective 2011/83/EU, Art. 18Confidence: mediumFrance — La Poste / Colissimo compensationFRNational — FranceCode des postes et des communications électroniques and La Poste’s conditions générales de venteConfidence: lowGermany — Deutsche Post DHL domestic parcelsDENational — GermanyPostgesetz and the DHL Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen Paket/PäckchenConfidence: lowDHL Express — service commitments and claimsDENational — GermanyDHL Express Terms and Conditions of CarriageConfidence: lowNetherlands — PostNL compensationNLNational — NetherlandsPostwet 2009 and PostNL’s algemene voorwaardenConfidence: low

Does this one reach your facts?

The engine runs every regime that could apply at once and reconciles them, rather than making you guess which page to read.

Run your factsBack to the catalogue

Not a law firm. Not legal advice. You send it yourself. This page describes a law; it is not advice about your situation and no outcome is promised.