An Post Christmas Posting Dates 2026: The Dates to Plan Around

An Post has not published its Christmas 2026 posting dates yet. It announces them in November, so as of 13 August 2026 there is no official 2026 schedule to quote. What does exist is An Post's official Christmas 2025 schedule, and that is the sensible thing to plan around, because the deadlines follow the same working-day pattern in the run-up to 25 December every year. The 2026 dates should land within a few days of the 2025 ones.

Everything below is last year's official schedule, marked as such. This page will be updated the day An Post confirms the 2026 dates.

Has An Post published Christmas 2026 posting dates?

Not yet. An Post publishes its Christmas posting dates in November, roughly four weeks before the first deadlines bite. That timing is awkward for anyone selling online, because the decisions that matter (how much stock to hold, when to close orders, what to promise at checkout) are made in September and October.

There is a second reason not to wait for the announcement. In 2025 An Post revised its own published dates mid-season, so even the official schedule was not final. More on that below.

An Post's official Christmas 2025 posting dates

These are the Christmas 2025 dates. They are not the 2026 dates, and An Post has not confirmed 2026. Use them as the planning baseline until the new schedule appears.

Standard Post: letters and large envelopes (2025)

Standard Post: parcels (2025)

The gap between the two tables is the part most people miss. Parcels close earlier than letters in every single group. Within Ireland the difference was six days: 16 December for a parcel, 22 December for a card. If you sell physical goods, the parcel table is your table.

An Post moved the parcel deadline forward mid-season in 2025

On 27 November 2025 An Post announced that the last Standard Post parcel date for Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain was moving forward from Friday 19 December to Tuesday 16 December. The reason given was parcel volumes.

Anyone who had built a December plan around 19 December lost three days, and lost them in the last week of November, when a small shop has already committed to stock, listings and delivery promises. That is the single most useful thing to carry into 2026: treat a published parcel deadline as the last possible date rather than the date you aim for, and expect it to be capable of moving.

An Post uses six destination groups, not a country list

An Post buckets every destination into six groups: Ireland, Northern Ireland, Great Britain, Rest of Europe, USA, Rest of World. There is no per-country deadline, which answers a lot of the questions Irish sellers ask in November.

• Germany, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Italy and Poland all sit in Rest of Europe. In 2025 that was 12 December for parcels.
• Australia, New Zealand and Canada all sit in Rest of World. In 2025 that was 4 December for parcels, the earliest deadline on the whole schedule.
• The USA is the only destination outside Europe with a line of its own, and in 2025 its parcel date matched Rest of World at 4 December.

If you sell to Canada or Australia, your Christmas season effectively ends in the first week of December. Plan the listings and the stock accordingly, not on the assumption that a distant country gets a later date because it is a bigger market.

Post a week before the deadline

A posting deadline is the last date An Post will accept post with a reasonable expectation of delivery before Christmas. It is not a guarantee, and December is the month with the least slack in the whole system.

A week of cushion covers the things that actually go wrong: a day lost to a printer, a customs check on a Great Britain or USA parcel, a batch of orders arriving on a Sunday, or a deadline moving the way the parcel deadline moved in 2025. Working back from the 2025 dates, a Rest of World parcel wanted to be in the post in late November rather than on 4 December.

Customs parcels to Great Britain and the USA need accurate declarations

Goods going to Great Britain and the USA both travel with a customs declaration, and December is the month when a vague one costs you most. "Gift", "sample" or "accessories" is what gets a parcel set aside for inspection. Write the actual item, the quantity and the value you sold it for: "wool scarf, 1 unit, EUR 45" moves; "clothing" often does not.

The 2025 schedule gives away how much time An Post allows for the customs leg. USA parcels closed on 4 December while Great Britain parcels ran to 16 December, a twelve-day difference for two lanes that both need declarations. Full pricing and customs detail for each is on the Ireland to the UK and Ireland to the USA pages.

Check your December prices in advance

Christmas orders tend to be bigger than the rest of the year, with more items in the box and gift packaging around them. The shipping calculator shows the exact label price for any destination and weight. Postal labels cover parcels up to 2kg; anything heavier needs a courier, and November is the better month to find that out.

Skipping the December post office queue

The post office counter in the second week of December is the slowest it gets all year, and every parcel bought there is postage paid one at a time.

Buying labels online changes the shape of that job. With EirPost you buy discounted An Post labels at your desk, print them on A4 or on 4x6 thermal labels, and drop the parcels in with nothing to pay at the counter. Every label is tracked, so the tracking number goes into the dispatch email and takes a share of the "where is my order" messages off your plate in the one month you have no time for them. If you have a batch of orders, upload them as a CSV and print the whole run at once. Parcels up to 2kg are covered, there is no contract, and the first three labels are free.

When the 2026 dates are published

An Post will publish the Christmas 2026 schedule in November, and this page will be updated the same day. Based on 2025, expect the same shape: Rest of World and the USA first in early December, Rest of Europe in the second week, and Ireland, Northern Ireland and Great Britain last, with parcels closing several days ahead of letters in every group.

Until then, plan on the 2025 dates, give yourself a week on top, and remember that the parcel deadline is the one that moved.