🍁 Canada Post Tracking

About Canada Post Package Tracking Service

Canada Post is Canada's postal service, owned by the Government of Canada. In 2025 it delivered nearly 5.9 billion pieces of mail, parcels and messages. With nearly 5,800 post offices and more than 60,000 employees, Canada Post provides reliable domestic and international shipping services to every address in Canada, from major cities to remote northern communities.

Canada Post moves parcels through a network of processing plants and thousands of retail outlets, and its scan pattern is unlike a private courier's. Guaranteed services scan at each handling point; Regular Parcel can run days between updates on the same lane. The tracker shows those scans, and the guide below explains the common ones, including what changes as door-to-door addresses convert to community mailboxes.

Enter the number above. Once your package ships, you'll see each scan location, transit progress, and delivery confirmation.

Canada Post Shipping Services

Special Services & Features

FlexDelivery allows you to receive packages at any participating post office for free, perfect for those who can't receive deliveries at home. Signature Required means the delivery agent hands the item to the person who answers the door (never a child) and records their name and signature. Proof of Age Required is available for age-restricted items like alcohol or tobacco.

Collect on Delivery (COD) means Canada Post collects up to CAN$5,000 by credit card or up to CAN$1,000 in cash before it delivers the parcel, within Canada only. Do Not Safe Drop ensures packages won't be left unattended. Coverage can be purchased up to $5,000 for valuable items. You can sign up for email or text delivery updates on canadapost.ca or in the Canada Post app.

Canada Post Service Comparison

Canada Post splits its lineup into guaranteed services, where a missed commitment is refundable, and everything else, where the date is an estimate. The table below sets commitment, coverage and guarantee status side by side.

Understanding Canada Post Delivery Guarantees

Priority: Guarantees next-business-day delivery to major urban centers. If Priority doesn't meet its delivery commitment, Canada Post will refund the shipping cost (conditions apply). Delivery to central business districts is guaranteed by 10:30 AM.

Xpresspost: Guarantees delivery within 1-2 business days depending on origin and destination. Major city-to-major city shipments typically arrive next business day. If Xpresspost doesn't meet its delivery commitment, Canada Post will refund the shipping cost (conditions apply).

Non-Guaranteed Services: Regular Parcel and Tracked Packet publish estimated dates rather than commitments, so a late delivery is not refundable. Regular Parcel also carries no default insurance, which matters more than the missing guarantee once the contents are worth anything.

Complete Guide to Canada Post Tracking

Understanding Canada Post Tracking Numbers

Canada Post uses the Universal Postal Union S10 standard for most trackable items: two letters, nine digits, then CA. The CA at the end is the code of the country that issued the number. Canada Post's own guide shows one pattern, AA 000 000 000 AA, for Priority, Xpresspost, Expedited Parcel and Regular Parcel counter labels and does not list prefixes by service. Online shipping labels use 16 digits instead.

Lettermail is not trackable. Standard letter post carries no barcode and no tracking, so there is nothing to look up. If a sender tells you they mailed something and gave you no number, that is why.

What the 2025 Restructuring Means for Your Parcel

Door-to-door delivery is being phased out. In September 2025 the federal government lifted the moratorium on community mailbox conversions. About four million addresses still receiving mail at the door move to community mailboxes, joining the roughly three quarters of Canadians already served that way. Canada Post expects the conversion to take about five years. As of September 2026 it had identified about 686,000 addresses in 55 communities for conversion in late 2026 or 2027, with addresses in Sept-Îles and Winnipeg the first to convert, in October 2026. Written notice goes to an address before its own conversion.

Two other changes matter for parcels. The requirement to deliver five days a week has been dropped, and the moratorium on closing rural post offices has been lifted. Together those mean more variability in when a scan appears and, in some rural areas, a different pickup location than the one you are used to.

What this looks like in tracking: more parcels finishing at a community mailbox or parcel locker rather than a doorstep, more "item available for pickup" outcomes in areas losing a local outlet, and delivery-day gaps that are operational rather than a sign of a problem. If your address converts, the delivery scan text changes even though nothing about the parcel did.

Reading Canada Post Scan Events

Electronic information submitted by shipper means a label exists and Canada Post does not have the item. Sellers often create labels in batches days before induction. Only the sender can move this along.

Item accepted at the post office is the first physical scan. Canada Post now has custody.

Item processed at sorting facility marks arrival at a processing plant.

Item in transit covers movement with no new facility scan yet. On Regular Parcel this can sit for a day or more without meaning anything.

Item out for delivery puts the parcel on a vehicle for today. Canada Post does not commit to a time window on non-guaranteed services.

Delivery attempt, notice card left means the carrier could not complete delivery and left a card, long known as the 1162. The card points to the post office holding the item and the date it will be returned to sender.

Item available for pickup means it is waiting at the post office named in the tracking detail. Bring government photo ID. Canada Post holds items for 15 calendar days before returning them, and that window is worth acting on rather than watching.

Item presented to Customs on inbound international means the parcel reached Canada and CBSA is assessing it. Duties or handling fees may be payable before release.

Return to sender means the item is going back, usually after the 15-day hold expired, an address failed, or the recipient refused it. Once this scan appears, recovery means asking the sender to reship.

FlexDelivery, Community Mailboxes and Parcel Lockers

FlexDelivery is free. You register at canadapost.ca, pick a post office, and receive a personal FlexDelivery address at that location. Order to it and the parcel goes straight to the outlet, so there is no failed attempt and no card. The retailer must be able to deliver to a PO box. For anyone in an apartment building with parcel theft problems, it removes the problem rather than managing it.

Parcel lockers work differently from a mailbox delivery. When an item goes into a community mailbox parcel compartment, the carrier leaves a key in your mail compartment. The key stays in the locker once you open it, which is by design. If tracking says delivered and your mailbox holds a key rather than a parcel, check the locker bank before reporting anything.

Card for Pickup can be requested at shipping time so Canada Post skips the home attempt and routes straight to the outlet. Useful for valuables, and more relevant each year as addresses convert to community boxes.

Signature options are not all the same. Signature Required lets anyone at the address sign. Do Not Safe Drop prevents an unattended delivery. Proof of Age 18 or 19 requires ID and cannot be waived by a note on the door.

Why Canada Post Tracking Goes Quiet

Day one. A number showing only "electronic information submitted" means the label exists and nobody has inducted the item. Wait out a full business day first.

Match the gap to the service. Priority and Xpresspost should scan often. Regular Parcel can run 1 to 10 business days with sparse scans, and rural lanes are sparser still. A three-day gap means something different on each.

Weekends and holidays. Canada Post does not run regular residential delivery on Saturdays or Sundays, and statutory holidays vary by province. A Friday scan followed by silence until Monday or Tuesday is the pattern.

Check the service alerts page. Canada Post publishes delivery service disruptions by region, and during weather events or labour action this is the fastest way to tell a systemic delay from a problem with your specific parcel.

Open a service ticket rather than only phoning. At canadapost.ca, Track and Manage leads to a ticket form that creates a written record. Customer service is on 1-866-607-6301. The ticket matters because it is the step that precedes a claim.

Recipients should start with the sender. Canada Post pays compensation to the sender, so they hold the relationship. A recipient can raise an inquiry, but the claim itself belongs to whoever bought the postage.

Canada Post Claims: The Waiting Period Is Shorter Than You Think

Canada Post sets its own waiting periods, and they depend on the service and destination. Waiting longer than you need to can push a claim past the deadline.

Coverage is not universal. Many Canada Post services include CAN$100 of base insurance, but not all of them. Regular Parcel carries no default coverage, so a lost Regular Parcel with nothing purchased at mailing returns your postage and nothing else. Additional coverage can be bought at mailing, up to CAN$5,000 on eligible services.

What gets paid: the lowest of the item's value, the coverage included with the service, and any additional coverage purchased. The sender may also be eligible for compensation for the postage value. Sentimental value, lost earnings and consequential damages sit outside every carrier's liability.

Even without coverage, ask for the postage back. Canada Post states that packages without insurance coverage may still qualify for a postage refund.

The sender files, but the recipient can start the inquiry. Compensation goes to the sender of record. A recipient who opens a service ticket gives the sender the reference number they need, which speeds the claim rather than duplicating it.

Check the non-insurable contents list before you assume you are covered. Canada Post excludes categories outright, and fragile goods packed against its packaging standards are denied on that basis. Keep the packaging after a damage claim, because it may be inspected.

Strikes and Service Disruptions: The Current Picture

Canada Post labour disruption is not history, and any guide describing 2018 as the most recent event is several rounds behind.

Recent timeline. A nationwide strike ran through late 2024. CUPW struck nationally again on 25 September 2025, hours after the government announced the end of door-to-door delivery, then scaled back to rotating regional strikes in October 2025 so mail could move. Canada Post and CUPW reached tentative agreements in December 2025, and on 1 June 2026 Canada Post announced that CUPW members had voted to accept them. The new agreements run to 31 January 2029. Ottawa added short-term repayable funding in February 2026.

What a disruption does to tracking. Scans stop rather than showing an error, so a parcel appears frozen at its last facility. Nothing is lost; it is queued.

Guarantees are suspended during labour disruption. Priority and Xpresspost money-back guarantees do not apply during strikes, work-to-rule or force majeure, so a late delivery in that period is not refundable.

If something is time-critical, contact the sender before service degrades rather than after. Passports, prescriptions, benefit cheques and legal documents are the categories that hurt. Purolator, UPS, FedEx and regional couriers stay running, at higher cost.

Packing, proof of value and the other habits that decide a claim on any carrier are collected in our shipping protection and claims guide. Everything above is particular to Canada Post.