Answering your top FAQs

'Pending' means your item hasn't been scanned into our system yet. This can be because your parcel:

• hasn’t been posted yet
• was posted in a street posting box (which can take a little longer for the item to be scanned)
• was posted over the counter in bulk, but not scanned yet.

Your tracking status should update in 24 to 48 hours.

Pending can also mean that it's an old tracking number that hasn't had any activity in over 2 months, and has been archived.

The tracking status 'in transit' means that your item is on its way to be delivered.

• It has been lodged by the sender and processed by us and is on its way to its destination.
• It hasn’t been delivered yet.

After 'in transit', the next tracking term you should see will be 'delivered' or 'awaiting collection'.

These messages might be shown for items sent using one of our international services that doesn’t come with tracking as a standard feature. These include:

• International Post Registered
• International Economy (Air and Sea)

No track events will be shown for these items. However, if the item was sent using International Post Registered, a signature will be obtained when the item is delivered.

For more information about which domestic and international services are trackable visit our tracking service.

'Returning to sender' means we were unable to deliver your item. This could be because:

• you didn’t collect your parcel
• the name on the parcel wasn’t known at the address or someone declined delivery
• the item is damaged.

If your enquiry is about the delivery of essential medication, please contact us as soon as you think your item is running late or missing.

For all other domestic deliveries, please wait until 10 business days after the expected delivery date before making a late item enquiry. You can get the expected delivery date by tracking your parcel using the AusPost app or our online tracking tool.

Please see our domestic updates for info on the latest issues affecting deliveries within Australia.

We'll try our best to deliver your parcel. If it's too big to be left in your mailbox and no one's at the delivery address, we'll:

• check if special delivery instructions have been provided
• look for a suitable Safe Drop location (if a signature isn't required and the delivery instructions allow).

Find out how to organise a Safe Drop for your parcel.

Signature on delivery items

If it's a signature-on-delivery item, we'll leave the parcel in a safe location only where:

• the sender has waived our requirement to capture a signature, and
• the recipient has accepted an invitation to authorise Safe Drop through MyPost.

If these options aren't possible, our delivery person will take the parcel to a local Post Office to be collected.
We’ll send you a notification by email or SMS to let you know where and when you can collect your parcel.

Have you signed up for a free MyPost account?

The best way to have parcels delivered at your convenience is to register for a MyPost account. You can then use a 24/7 Parcel Locker, a Post Office (using Parcel Collect) or a Post Office Box.

You can then ask senders to address your parcels to the most convenient address.

When you want to check on the delivery of a delayed parcel, it can be helpful to contact the sender because:

• Senders have specific information about how the item was packaged, addressed, and the content.
• Senders can resolve your enquiry in line with their own policies.

When to contact the sender

If your parcel’s tracking status is ‘Parcel not lodged’, ‘Pending’, or ‘Ready for processing’, and there’s been no tracking updates in over 10 business days, you could contact the sender to check on your parcel.

Raise an enquiry

The sender can raise an enquiry with us on your behalf, and we’ll work with them to locate your parcel or resolve your enquiry.

If the sender can’t assist, or if you’d prefer to contact us, please send us an online enquiry.

We understand how frustrating this can be. The only time this should happen is when special delivery instructions can’t be completed (such as if the sender of an item won’t permit us to leave an item without a signature, or if following your special delivery instructions mean that our posties would have to leave their bikes unattended), or when a driver or postie believes it’s potentially unsafe.

At home but your parcel wasn't delivered?

This can happen if:

• you live in an apartment. We often only have access to the public ground floor area, and in some cases have no access at all to an apartment building. This means we’re unable to deliver items directly to many apartments, as leaving the parcels in a public area is considered unsafe. We can deliver parcels that will fit in your letterbox if this is accessible in the public ground floor area. We will always try to get in touch with you to notify you of a parcel delivery by using the intercom.
• your door location means our posties would have to leave their bike unattended or out of sight.

Requested to have your parcel left in a safe place?

We can’t leave your parcel in a safe place if:

• the sender stated we were not permitted to leave the item without a signature
• we couldn't gain access because of a locked gate
• the front of the property is near the street in view of passers-by
• the location is not protected from the weather
• our posties would have to leave their bike unattended or out of sight to make the delivery
• the delivery person is uncertain whether there are dogs present, or a pet that may interfere with the item
• the address is an apartment where we only have ground level, public area access
• the driver feels that the item will be unsafe due to other factors (for example, there were people gathered near your property at the time of delivery).

If you believe it was not for any of the above reasons, we want to investigate. Please consider leaving feedback or making a complaint so we can address this issue.

If your address means you’re likely to often miss deliveries, please look into our free collection points where you can have your item sent to a 24/7 Parcel Locker or direct to a Post Office that’s close to home or work.

No, you can't nominate a preferred delivery time window. The time provided on the day of delivery is determined by your postie's route.

If a signature is required for delivery and nobody's home, your postie will take your parcel to a local Post Office for collection.

We take care to make sure parcels you ask us to leave in a safe place will be left in a safe, secure, weather-proof location.

If you haven’t received your parcel as expected and you’re concerned it's missing or has been stolen, please check:

• with other members of the household
• in other locations around the front of your property
• if you’ve received a card, SMS or email notifying you that it’s been delivered to your local Post Office
• missing mail items for more information.

Under the Safe Drop terms and conditions, we can’t be held liable when a parcel approved to be left in a safe place is subsequently damaged or goes missing.

Your parcel is still moving towards the delivery address, even if no scans have appeared recently.

You’ll see updates as your parcel moves through key checkpoints in the delivery journey on our tracking tool or the AusPost app.

For parcel delivery time estimates, visit domestic delivery times.

Delayed parcels

If your parcel doesn’t arrive on the expected delivery date, it doesn’t mean your parcel won’t arrive or that it’s gone missing. Most delayed parcels arrive within 5 days of the expected delivery date.

If your parcel hasn’t arrived and it’s been 10 business days since the expected delivery date, we’ll investigate.

If you’re the sender, send us an online enquiry on our late or missing item form. If you’re the receiver, contact the sender and they’ll raise an enquiry on your behalf. If they can’t assist, please contact us.

We provide an ‘expected delivery date’ for many of the items we deliver.

To make sure the date we give you is as accurate as possible, we need to know a few details about the item, including:

• where it’s going to and from
• the service being used to deliver it.

Why we’re not able to provide a delivery estimate

For some items – although the address is on the parcel – our tracking system doesn’t have the information it needs to calculate an expected delivery date. This might be because:

• the item has been posted in a street posting box
• some of the details we need haven’t been included in the information provided by the sender
• the address is hand-written on the item
• it’s an international item being delivered by other carriers.

How to check your ‘expected delivery date’

If your item fits one of the scenarios where we can’t automatically generate an expected delivery date, we can still provide an estimate. You’re able to do this by entering your postcode on our tracking tool.

All parcels and letters sent within Australia are processed through central processing centres.

While sometimes it might seem like these centres are out of the way in terms of the most direct route you would expect your parcel or letter to take, using them allows us to optimise our delivery process and deliver your mail as quickly as possible.

Some of our largest central processing centres across Australia include:

Letters

Vic: Dandenong Letters Centre, Dandenong
NSW: Sydney West Letters Facility, Strathfield
Qld: Northgate Mail Centre, Northgate
SA: Adelaide Mail Centre, Adelaide
WA: Perth Mail Centre, Perth Airport
Tas: Hobart Mail Centre, Mornington

Parcels

Vic: Melbourne Parcel Facility, Sunshine West
NSW: Sydney Parcel Facility, Chullora
Qld: Brisbane Parcel Facility, Redbank
SA: Netley Parcel Facility, Netley
WA: Perth Parcel Facility, Welshpool
Tas: Launceston Parcel Centre, St Leonards

So, don’t be alarmed if you notice your parcel or letter is scanned at one of these locations. It simply means it’s being processed efficiently and is on its way.

Check domestic delivery times to see when your parcel is expected to arrive.

You might see the tracking messages 'we couldn't find your tracking number' and 'unconfirmed tracking number'. This could mean either:

• you've entered the wrong tracking number. Check the number is correct, and the parcel is being sent using Australia Post.
• the number isn't recognised because the item hasn't been scanned into our system yet. Try the tracking number again in 24 hours.

If you see the 'unconfirmed tracking number' message while using the AusPost app, you'll have the option of saving the number to your track list. That way, you'll see the tracking status as soon as it's available – no need to enter the tracking number again later.

There might sometimes be a delay in showing some track events for technical reasons.

If this happens, our tracking tool will only show the most recent and relevant track events, rather than showing notifications that are out of date or out of sequence.

For example, if a track event letting you know that your item is ’in transit’ is delayed, and meantime your item is delivered, you’ll only see the delivery notification.

If you have a StarTrack Courier service account, you can track the status of your delivery online.

Simply log in now to the StarTrack Courier customer portal.

If you lodged your item in-store, make sure you provide your mobile number and email address so you can receive real-time tracking and electronic proof of delivery via SMS and/or email.

Redirection for your parcel may be unavailable for a few reasons:

• The sender has only provided your name and residential or postal address (not an email address or mobile number)
• The sender has opted out of allowing redirect requests
• The parcel is being sent overseas or is with an international delivery partner
• It was originally addressed to a Parcel Locker, Post Office or Post Office Box
• It's addressed to a non-delivery service area (meaning the parcel has to be collected)
• Our tracking system hasn’t got the information it needs to support a redirect
• It’s too late to request a redirect as it's on board a vehicle for delivery.

If your parcel is ineligible to be redirected, it will be delivered to the original address.

In most cases, you can nominate someone else to collect a parcel or letter from the Post Office for you.

If you can’t make it to the Post Office yourself, you can either:

• arrange for someone else who lives or works at the delivery address to collect it for you
• give someone else authority to collect for you.

To see the ways you can do this, visit collecting a parcel from the Post Office.

At the Post Office counter, we’ll ask them to show proof of identity. If the item they’re collecting was sent to a Parcel Collect address or transferred from a Parcel Locker, they’ll also need to show the collection notification email or SMS we sent you. At the counter, they can show the email or SMS – forwarded by you – on their phone, or present a printout of the email.

Signature required items

In some cases, though, the sender may require that you collect and sign for the item in-person. This means you can’t authorise someone else to collect it for you. If you’re ordering something online, you should be made aware of this when placing your order.

Our posties usually deliver between 7am and 5pm, Monday to Friday.

During peak periods, posties sometimes work weekends and extended hours to move more parcels through our network.

But if your parcel hasn't arrived by 5pm, it's likely that it will be prioritised for delivery the next day.

Parcel delivery times can vary depending on a number of factors including local volumes, weather and traffic conditions.

You’ll need to allow an extra business day for us to intercept it, plus any additional days needed to deliver your parcel to the new address.

Get a delivery date estimate or find out how to manage your delivery while your parcel is in transit.