🇨🇳 China Post Tracking
Track packages & mail across China • 跟踪中国各地的包裹和邮件
📋 Where to Find Your China Post Tracking Number
- Check the marketplace order page first, because AliExpress, Temu and eBay show the reference under order details once the seller ships
- China Post tracking numbers are typically 13 characters long
- Common formats: CP123456789CN, RA987654321CN, EE123456789CN
- ePacket and tracked packets start with L (LA-LZ) or U (UA-UZ), for example LX123456789CN. The whole E range is reserved for EMS under the UPU standard, so an E-prefixed number is never ePacket
- Registered Mail starts with: RA, RB, RC, RD, RE, RF, RG, RH, RI, RJ, RK, RL, RM, RN, RO, RP, RQ, RR, RS, RT, RU, RV, RW, RX, RY, RZ
- Wait 24-72 hours after shipping notification for first tracking update
Note: Unregistered ordinary mail without tracking numbers cannot be tracked. Only services with tracking numbers are supported.
Checking multiple tracking sources for the most accurate information
About China Post Package Tracking Service
China Post is China's national postal service and the world's second-largest postal network, delivering millions of packages and letters annually both domestically and internationally. With over 50,000 post offices across China and partnerships with postal services in over 200 countries worldwide, China Post provides reliable and affordable shipping solutions for e-commerce, businesses, and individuals sending packages from China to the rest of the world.
Our free China Post tracking service allows you to monitor your shipments in real-time, from the moment they're accepted at the post office in China until they reach their final destination anywhere in the world. Whether you're tracking an ePacket package from AliExpress, a Registered Air Mail parcel from Taobao, or an EMS express delivery, our tracking tool provides detailed status updates and estimated delivery dates for all China Post services.
Track your China Post packages easily by entering your tracking number in the search box above. China Post tracking numbers are typically 13 characters long and may begin with prefixes like CP, RA, RB, EE, or other combinations depending on the service type. Once your package ships, you'll receive real-time updates showing each scan location, transit progress, and delivery confirmation as it travels from China to your doorstep.
Quick China Post Tracking Guide (30 Seconds)
How to Track a China Post Package in 3 Steps:
- Find your tracking number: check your order confirmation email, seller’s website under "My Orders", or shipping receipt. Numbers are 13 characters e.g. CP123456789CN, RA987654321CN, EE123456789CN.
- Paste the number above: a CN suffix means China Post; anything else belongs to a consolidator such as Cainiao or YunExpress.
- View real-time updates: see current location, departure from China, customs status, and full tracking history.
Tip: If tracking shows "Information Received," wait 24–72 hours. The seller may have printed the label but not dropped off the package at a China Post office yet.
China Post Shipping Services
🚀 ePacket
The e-commerce packet product for items under 2kg, tracked end to end where the destination post participates. Note that its economics changed sharply for US-bound parcels once the $800 de minimis exemption ended: duty is now assessed regardless of value, so a cheap item can attract a charge that exceeds the shipping saving.
7-20 days📮 Registered Air Mail
Secure international mail service with tracking and proof of delivery. Provides compensation for lost or damaged items. Ideal for valuable items, documents, and gifts sent internationally.
10-30 days📦 China Post Small Packet
Lightweight item delivery under 2kg without full tracking. Most economical option for non-urgent, low-value items. Limited tracking availability in destination countries.
15-45 days✨ China Post Ordinary Small Packet Plus
Budget-friendly option for small items with limited tracking. Tracking is available within China but may not update after package leaves China. Best for non-urgent, low-value items.
20-60 days⚡ Express Mail Service (EMS)
China Post's express product and the only one with end-to-end scanning through to delivery. Priority handling, insurance and signature included. Transit times are published aims rather than a money-back guarantee, and customs clearance sits outside them.
3-10 days🛫 International Express Mail
A label some sellers use for EMS or for a commercial line-haul service rather than a distinct China Post product. If your reference does not start with E and end in CN, it is likely a consolidator such as Cainiao, YunExpress or 4PX, and China Post tracking will not recognise it.
5-15 days📦 China Post Air Parcel
Heavier packages (up to 30kg) shipped by air with tracking. More economical than EMS for larger items. Delivery times vary significantly by destination country.
10-30 days🚢 Surface Mail
Most economical shipping option for non-urgent items. Packages travel by sea and land with minimal tracking. Delivery times can be very long but costs are significantly lower than air services.
30-120 daysSpecial Services & Features
China Post offers several value-added services to enhance your shipping experience. Insurance coverage can be purchased for valuable items up to certain limits depending on the service type. Signature Required service ensures packages are handed directly to the recipient or authorized person. Restricted Delivery allows senders to specify who can receive the package, such as "Addressee Only" delivery instructions.
Return Receipt service provides proof of delivery with a copy of the recipient's signature. Money Orders allow secure transfer of funds internationally. Post Office Box services are available for both senders and recipients who need secure mail handling. All tracked international services include automatic email notifications to keep customers informed about delivery status.
China Post Service Comparison
Choose the right China Post service for your shipping needs from China. Below is a comprehensive comparison of delivery speeds, features, and guarantees for each service level.
| Service | Delivery Time | Tracking | Insurance | Max Weight | Signature |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EMS | 3-10 business days | ✓ | ✓ | 30kg | ✓ |
| ePacket | 7-20 business days | ✓ | ✓ | 2kg | Optional |
| Registered Air Mail | 10-30 business days | ✓ | ✓ | 2kg | ✓ |
| Small Packet | 15-45 business days | ✓ (Limited) | ✗ | 2kg | ✗ |
| Ordinary Small Packet Plus | 20-60 business days | ✓ (China only) | ✗ | 2kg | ✗ |
| Air Parcel | 10-30 business days | ✓ | ✓ | 30kg | Optional |
| Surface Mail | 30-120 business days | ✗ | ✗ | 20kg | ✗ |
⚡ EMS
🚀 ePacket
📮 Registered Air Mail
📦 Small Packet
✨ Ordinary Small Packet Plus
✈️ Air Parcel
🚢 Surface Mail
Understanding China Post Delivery Times
EMS: China Post's Express Mail Service is the fastest option, delivering to most countries in 3-10 business days. EMS packages receive priority handling throughout the postal network and include full tracking, insurance, and signature on delivery. EMS is ideal for time-sensitive documents, high-value items, and urgent shipments.
ePacket: Developed specifically for e-commerce, ePacket offers faster delivery than standard mail with full tracking for packages under 2kg. Delivery typically takes 7-20 business days to major destinations. ePacket is the most popular service for AliExpress, eBay, and other online marketplace purchases due to its balance of speed, tracking, and affordability.
Standard Services: Registered Air Mail and Small Packet services offer more economical shipping with delivery times ranging from 10-45 business days. These services are perfect for non-urgent shipments where cost savings are more important than speed. Ordinary Small Packet Plus is the most budget-friendly option but provides tracking only within China's postal network.
Complete Guide to China Post Tracking
Understanding China Post Tracking Numbers
China Post uses the Universal Postal Union S10 format on anything trackable leaving the country: two letters, nine digits, then CN. The opening letter names the product class, and that tells you how much visibility to expect before a single scan lands.
| Prefix | Product | Tracking you will actually get |
|---|---|---|
| PrefixE_ 9 digits CN | ProductEMS | Tracking you will actually getEnd to end, including destination-country scans |
| PrefixL_ 9 digits CN | ProductePacket and e-commerce packets | Tracking you will actually getFull tracking where the destination post participates |
| PrefixR_ 9 digits CN | ProductRegistered Air Mail, Small Packet | Tracking you will actually getSignature on delivery, patchy in-transit detail |
| PrefixC_ 9 digits CN | ProductAir Parcel and Surface Parcel | Tracking you will actually getScans at hand-off points only |
| PrefixU_ 9 digits CN | ProductPackets under customs control, some ePacket variants | Tracking you will actually getVaries by destination, often thin after export |
| PrefixV_ 9 digits CN | ProductInsured letter post | Tracking you will actually getTracked, with declared-value cover |
The letter ranges are allocated, not arbitrary. The UPU reserves EA-EZ for EMS, LA-LZ for tracked letter post, RA-RZ for registered, CA-CZ for parcels, VA-VZ for insured and UA-UZ for letter post under customs control. Plenty of guides claim ePacket numbers start with EE. They do not, and a seller quoting an E-prefixed number has given you an EMS reference.
A number that stops at "departed from China" is rarely a lost parcel. On the cheaper products, China Post's visibility ends when the item leaves the country. Whether you see anything after that hangs on whether the destination postal operator feeds scans back into the UPU network. Try the same number on your own national postal site, which often holds data China Post never receives.
Marketplace numbers are not always China Post numbers. AliExpress, Temu and similar platforms route through several carriers and consolidators. If your reference does not end in CN and does not match any pattern above, it may belong to Cainiao, YunExpress, 4PX or another line-haul operator, and China Post tracking will never recognise it.
The Rule Change That Reshaped China-to-US Parcels
If you are in the United States, this is the single most important thing to understand about a parcel from China, and it explains most of what now sits stuck in tracking.
The $800 de minimis exemption is gone for good. Duty-free treatment ended first for mainland Chinese and Hong Kong origin in May 2025, went worldwide that August, and in June 2026 US Customs lifted it out of executive-order territory and wrote it into permanent regulation. No restoration date has been set.
Every commercial parcel now needs a customs entry and owes duty, whatever its declared value. For Chinese-origin consumer goods the combined rate through 2026 has typically run around a third of declared value once the base tariff and Section 301 surcharges are stacked, though the stack has shifted more than once, so treat any figure as a snapshot.
What decides your experience is DDP versus DAP. If the seller ships Delivered Duty Paid, the duty is prepaid and the parcel arrives with nothing to pay. If they ship Delivered At Place, US Customs raises a notice and the parcel waits until you pay. Marketplace listings seldom say which, and it is the difference between a smooth delivery and a fortnight of silence.
In tracking terms this shows up as a customs hold, not a delay. A parcel sitting at "held by customs" or "awaiting payment" is neither lost nor stuck in transit. Someone has to pay before it moves. Check your email and messages, including spam, because carrier duty notices land in spam more often than not.
Our guide to US import duties works through what applies now and how the charge is calculated.
China Post Status Wording, Decoded
Statuses are machine-translated from Chinese and the phrasing can be opaque. Here is what each is telling you.
Shipment information received: the seller registered a label. China Post has nothing physical, and marketplace sellers batch these days ahead.
Posting / Accepted: the first real scan, taken at a local collection point.
Departure from original processing centre: the item has left the origin city sorting facility.
Arrival at international exchange office: it has reached one of the outbound gateways, usually Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or Shenzhen, where customs clears it for export.
Export customs clearance completed then Departed from China: it is on a plane or ship. Expect the longest silence of the whole journey here, days on air routes and weeks on surface.
Arrival at destination country: the receiving postal service or its agent now holds it, and their system becomes the better source.
Handed over to customs or Import customs clearance: the destination country is assessing duty. Under the current US rules this stage lasts longer and stops more parcels than it used to.
Delivered / Signed: recorded with a time, and a signature where the service required one.
Chinese Holidays Wreck Delivery Estimates
Chinese New Year is the big one and it moves every year, falling somewhere between late January and mid-February on the lunar calendar. Factories and logistics shut for a week on paper and closer to two or three in practice, and the backlog either side is the heaviest of the year. A parcel entering the network in the fortnight before it can sit for a month.
Golden Week in early October closes things for a week with a similar pile-up. The 11.11 and 12.12 shopping festivals generate the highest parcel volumes on earth, and China Post's own network slows for weeks afterwards.
What to do about it: if tracking froze in late January, early October, or the weeks after a shopping festival, check the calendar before assuming anything is wrong.
When a China Post Number Goes Quiet
Match the silence to the product. EMS should scan through to delivery. Surface Mail can post nothing for six weeks and still be fine. Judging a Surface parcel by EMS expectations is the most common mistake.
Query the destination carrier. Once an item has landed, your national postal service usually holds fresher data than China Post. Enter the same CN number there.
Rule out a customs hold before anything else, above all on US-bound parcels. That is now the likeliest single cause of a stalled item.
Contacting China Post is difficult from abroad. The hotline is 11183 inside China and English support is limited. In practice the seller or marketplace is the faster route, and on a marketplace purchase they are also the party who owes you a remedy.
Claims: Why the Seller Matters More Than China Post
The sender files, and the sender is in China. China Post accepts an enquiry from the sender of record. A buyer overseas has no direct claim route, which makes this different from every domestic carrier on this site.
Your real protection is the marketplace, not the postal system. AliExpress Buyer Protection, eBay Money Back Guarantee, Temu's refund policy and PayPal dispute rights all give you a faster and more reliable remedy than a UPU enquiry, and they run to their own deadlines. Those deadlines are the ones to diarise, because they are usually shorter than the postal investigation.
Compensation is capped low and set in SDR. Registered and parcel products fall under UPU liability rules expressed in Special Drawing Rights, not dollars, and typical payouts are far below the value of most electronics. EMS carries higher cover. Any figure quoted in dollars on an English-language guide is a conversion of a moving target, so check the terms for the exact product.
An international enquiry is slow. China Post has to query the destination operator through the UPU system, and several weeks is normal on a multi-country route. Open the marketplace dispute in parallel rather than waiting for the postal answer.
Untracked products carry no practical cover. On the cheapest Small Packet options there is no delivery record to dispute, which is the trade you accepted at checkout.
How you pack, what proof you keep and when you photograph apply to every carrier alike, and the shipping protection and claims guide sets them out. Above belongs to shipments from China.
