Effective 1 Jan 2022, Swiss Post increased its "A Post" charge for domestic letters from Fr. 1 to 1.10 and its "B Post" charge from Fr. 0.85 to 0.90. Effective 1 Feb 2022, the below is what happens to domestic letters without sufficient postage, according to Blick :
1. an old Fr. 0.85 stamp is stuck on the letter, without sender's address:
The recipient of the letter is asked by the post office to pay Fr. 0.05 more.
2. an old Fr. 0.85 stamp is stuck on the letter, with sender's address:
Swiss Post asks the sender of the letter to pay Fr. 0.05 in arrears. In addition, the post office demands a fine of Fr. 1.
3 An old Fr. 1.00 stamp without the remark/sticker "A-Post" is stuck on the letter, without sender's address:
Swiss Post treats the letter as "overstamped B Post". The letter arrives in a maximum of three working days.
4. an old Fr. 1.00 stamp marked "A-Post" is stuck on the letter, without sender's address:
The post office delivers the letter the next day and demands the missing amount of Fr. 0.10 from the recipient.
5 An old Fr. 1.00 stamp marked "A-Post" is affixed to the letter, with sender's address:
The missing amount of Fr. 0.10 is claimed from the sender. In addition, the post office demands a fine of Fr. 1.00. Thus, such a letter would cost Fr. 2.10 under certain circumstances."
I hardly use the post anymore, but I do have about 10 "A" post stamps which I paid CHF 1 each for but this is not shown on the stamp, only "A Post".
I also have about 6 "A Post" stamps that were given to us by the Post free of charge. They put 2 through each letter box so we had a bit of a collection.
My thrifty uncle in the UK would always buy sheets of 1st class stamps rather than ones with a price on them equivalent to the current cost of 1st class postage, exactly so that he wasn't impacted by a price raise immediately. I would assume that if the Swiss stamp says A-Post on it, it's valid for A-Post regardless of what you paid (or indeed didn't) for it.
Darn, didn’t know prices had gone up. Will need to get some .10 stamps if I can, otherwise the 1 francs will have to do for the time being and just send stuff off a littler earlier than normal.
YES in UK one can both small and large stamps for 1st and 2nd class that do not show a price.
Unfortunately all other stamps have a price. Bit of a pain for Europe and rest of the world. I try to keep a few different price stamps to save me go to post office until I need. Last March, they did away with 20 gram weight to Europe, so the small letter price went from £1.42 to £1.70.
At least both Switzerland and UK still have a good postal mail system with deliveries five or six days a week.
Damn, international prices have gone up as well. Nice of Swisspost to say so.
Individual letter items – international
– Consignments are now classified according to their content (documents and small goods).
– Letter mail with small goods can be sent in the maxi letter format. For the “Small goods” maxi letter, there are new weight categories (up to 100 g and up to 250 g).
– One speed: consignments are no longer divided into PRIORITY and ECONOMY. The transport times reflect the guidelines published
as of 1 January 2022. However, it is advisable to add the “PRIORITY” note to
consignments when sending individual items.
– The consignment formats and weights comply with international specifications (standard letter format up to 0.5 cm thick, large
letter weight up to 500 g).
New services and prices from 1 January 2022:
Documents Weight Zone 1 / Europe Zone 2 / other countries
Standard letter
up to B5 (250 × 176 mm),
up to 5 mm thick
1–20 g 1.80 2.30
21–50 g 2.90 4.10
51–100 g 4.00 5.30
Large letter
up to B4 (353 × 250 mm),
up to 20 mm thick
1–100 g 4.00 5.80
101–250 g 7.00 9.00
251–500 g 12.00 16.00
Maxi letter
Length + width + height = max. 90 cm,
no dimension to exceed 60 cm
1–500 g 13.00 16.00
501–1,000 g 18.00 28.00
1,001–2,000 g 24.00 33.00
Small goods Weight Zone 1 / Europe Zone 2 / other countries
Maxi letter
Length + width + height = max. 90 cm,
no dimension to exceed 60 cm
1–100 g 4.00 7.00
101–250 g 9.00 12.00
251–500 g 14.00 17.00
501–1,000 g 20.00 27.00
1,001–1,500 g 25.00 32.00
1,501–2,000 g 30.00 37.00
Looks like I’ll need to get some .30 stamps as well if they do them.
It was very well publicised when they announced it back in the autumn and also in the press this with when the new prices came into effect.
They do have 0.30 stamps. I bought some this week but I will take advantage of the amnesty until January 31st to use up some of the stamps I already have.
Not sure, but I believe when they last went up some years ago we got a letter in the post saying it would be happening. Nothing like that this time. And on their website I had to dig around to find the info on actual pricing; I would have expected it to be under News/Info or something.
Didn’t see any .30s online so just ordered some .10s and .20s.
This explains the fine I got today? I had no idea what that was about, I am not sure if this is related
So basically my friendly Stadt at the end of the year sent me the form to fill a tax related questionnaire as I moved just recently here, they sent inside an envelope pre-tamped with my name and address as sender and their address for convenience and gave me 10 days to get back to them. sent it on 3rd Jan within the limits, and today I find a letter from swisspost with invoice -.90 CHF and fine 1.- CHF.