🇨🇳 China Post Tracking

About China Post Package Tracking Service

China Post is China's national postal service, delivering packages and letters both domestically and internationally.

Our China Post tracker shows the scans our tracking data providers return for your number. It works for ePacket, Registered Air Mail and EMS numbers ending in CN.

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, the tracking history lists each reported scan with its date, time and location.

China Post Shipping Services

China Post Service Comparison

The table compares China Post's international products on delivery time, tracking, weight limit and signature. Delivery times are typical ranges.

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.

Standard Services: Registered Air Mail and Small Packet services offer more economical shipping with delivery times ranging from 10-45 business days. 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.

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 on 2 May 2025, went worldwide on 29 August 2025, and in June 2026 US Customs made the suspension indefinite in two interim rules, one for mail and one for all other modes. A 2025 law ends the exemption worldwide from 1 July 2027. No restoration date has been set.

Every commercial parcel now needs a customs entry and owes duty, whatever its declared value. For Chinese-origin goods the amount depends on the item's tariff classification and the duty rates in force on the day it enters, and those rates have changed more than once since 2025.

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.

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 shopping festival brings China's busiest parcel days, so allow extra time for anything posted around it.

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 11185 inside China, or 11183 for EMS, 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.