Shipping, Post & Couriers

Verified 17 August 202618 min read12 sections

Almost everything in Chiang Mai eventually arrives in a plastic parcel dropped at your gate or building desk. Between the local courier companies and the two big shopping apps, domestic delivery here is fast, cheap and genuinely reliable — often next-day and sometimes same-day within the city. The harder parts are the ones that cross a border: getting your belongings into Thailand when you move, ordering from shops back home that won't ship here, receiving your home-country post, and sending things back out again. This page covers all of that, plus the everyday mechanics of receiving parcels at a condo or moobaan.

Prices below are rough and in Thai baht (THB). USD equivalents are generated from a single working rate held in the site config, so they stay consistent across the whole wiki rather than drifting page by page. Courier rates change with fuel surcharges and promotions; customs rules in particular are in flux (see Moving your belongings to Thailand). Confirm anything cost-sensitive before you rely on it.

The domestic couriers#

Thailand's parcel market went through a brutal price war and has settled into a clear pecking order. By 2025 Thailand Post remained the largest carrier by overall volume, Flash Express had climbed to second, J&T Express was a close third, and Kerry Express (KEX) — once the market leader — had slipped to a distant fourth after heavy losses and a strategic overhaul by its parent. For you as a resident, the practical upshot is that all four are cheap and widely available; you rarely choose your courier anyway, because the seller picks it. What matters is knowing how each behaves when a parcel lands.

Thailand Post — the national post office. Blue-and-white branches everywhere, including Mae Ping Post Office on Praisani Road just east of the Old City, the larger Chiang Mai (Charoen Muang) post office over by the railway station, and counters in most districts. Best for anything official (documents, sending things overseas via EMS) and for reaching truly remote addresses. Slower and more bureaucratic than the private couriers, but trusted.
Flash Express — aggressive, tech-forward, now the largest private courier. Free home pickup for senders, dense drop-off network, competitive rates. A default choice if you're shipping something yourself.
J&T Express — grew fast on the back of TikTok Shop volume. Very similar to Flash in reach and price; you'll receive plenty of J&T parcels whether you chose them or not.
Kerry Express / KEX — still operating and still has shopfronts around Chiang Mai, but going through a restructuring. Fine to use; just don't be surprised if a branch has closed or rebranded.

Sending a small parcel domestically typically costs somewhere in the ฿30–60 ($1–2) range depending on weight and distance, and arrives within one to three days. To send something, you can walk into any courier shop or 7-Eleven-adjacent counter, or book a free pickup through the Flash/J&T apps.

A useful shortcut: Grab and Bolt both offer same-day "package delivery" within the city (a rider collects and drops off within an hour or two). It costs more than a courier — often ฿60–150 ($2–4) depending on distance — but it's the fastest way to move something across town the same day. Both apps are covered on Essential Apps.

Receiving parcels at home#

If you live in a condo with a front desk, this is effortless: riders leave parcels with building security or the mailroom, and you collect them (or they hold cash-on-delivery items and you settle up). Deliveries run Monday–Saturday. Make sure the front desk knows your unit number and name, since parcels are sorted by whatever the sender wrote.

If you live in a moobaan (gated housing development) or a standalone house, delivery is still to your door, but addressing matters more. Include the village/building name in Thai in the address or order notes, and drop a GPS pin when the app offers one — Thai riders navigate by pin far more than by written address. A phone number on the order is essential; riders routinely call or LINE you when they're at the gate. See Where to Live for the condo-versus-moobaan trade-off more broadly.

Two practical habits worth adopting:

Use a 7-Eleven pickup point if you're often out, travel a lot, or don't have a secure place for parcels to sit. When ordering on Shopee or Lazada you can choose to deliver to a nearby 7-Eleven — and there's almost always one within a five-minute walk — then collect it at your convenience. Great for anything you don't want left at a gate.
Cash on delivery (COD) is offered on most items from most sellers. You pay the rider in cash (or increasingly by QR/PromptPay) when the parcel arrives. Convenient, but you can't inspect contents before paying, and refunds mean shipping the item back — so for anything expensive, paying upfront via the app gives you better buyer protection. Money & Banking covers PromptPay setup.

Buying online: Lazada & Shopee#

The two dominant shopping apps — Lazada and Shopee — are how most residents buy everything from phone chargers to furniture. Both work fine for foreigners (a Thai phone number and, ideally, a Thai bank card or PromptPay make life easier). From local Chiang Mai and Bangkok sellers, delivery is genuinely quick — often one to two days, sometimes same day within the city. From overseas sellers (mostly China), budget one to three weeks and factor in the new import taxes described below.

TikTok Shop has also become a serious third player and drives a lot of J&T's parcel volume, so if you shop there expect the same delivery patterns. See Essential Apps for setup notes on all three.

For larger purchases — furniture, appliances — both platforms and dedicated retailers (HomePro, Global House, IKEA via its Thailand delivery network) will deliver bulky items and often assemble or install. That's covered in more depth under Setting Up Home, and the bricks-and-mortar options are in Markets, Malls & Walking Streets.

Returns, refunds & disputes#

The thing nobody warns you about: buying is frictionless, returning is deliberately not. Both Lazada and Shopee do have a returns process, and for a genuinely defective, wrong or not-as-described item you'll get your money back — but the workflow is designed to be just annoying enough that you'll think twice for anything cheap.

Here's how it actually works:

Open the return inside the app, fast. In Lazada, go to the order → Return/Refund; in Shopee, the order → Return/Refund. The window is short — typically 7–15 days from delivery depending on the seller and item, and it starts ticking the moment the parcel is marked delivered, so don't sit on a damaged box.
Pick an accepted reason. "Defective," "wrong item," and "significantly not as described" are honoured. "Changed my mind" often is not accepted, or the seller can require you to pay return shipping — so it pays to read the listing carefully before buying, especially for clothing sizes and electronics compatibility. Clothes & Fashion has more on Thai versus international sizing.
You physically drop it off. Once the return is approved you package the item and take it to a designated drop-off point — usually a courier counter (Kerry/KEX, Flash or J&T), a post office, or certain 7-Elevens — and keep the drop-off receipt. This trip is the real friction; budget a little time for it.
Refunds take one to two weeks. After the seller receives and inspects the item you'll get a refund confirmation, then 3–7 business days for the money to land back on your card or in your app wallet / PromptPay. Paying by app (rather than cash-on-delivery) makes refunds much cleaner, because the platform holds the money and can reverse it without you chasing the seller.

A few practical habits that save grief:

Film the unboxing of anything valuable or fragile. A continuous video from a sealed box is the single most useful piece of evidence in a dispute over a damaged or missing item.
Prefer paying in-app over COD for expensive items. Cash-on-delivery means the money has already left your hands before you can inspect the goods, and getting it back means shipping the item and waiting — whereas app payments come with the platform's buyer-protection escrow.
Escalate to platform dispute resolution if a seller stalls or refuses. Both apps have a "raise a dispute" / customer-service path that takes the decision out of the seller's hands; the chat support is in Thai and English and generally sides with the buyer when you have photos or video.

For a parcel that never arrives or is marked delivered but wasn't, contact the seller through the app first, then open a dispute; keep the tracking number and any front-desk/security log. Genuinely lost parcels are rare here, but "left at the gate and vanished" is not, which is another argument for a 7-Eleven or front-desk delivery point. Emergency Numbers & Safety covers reporting an actual theft.

Sending things overseas#

For posting parcels out of Thailand you have two broad choices:

Thailand Post (EMS World / registered air mail) is the budget option and perfectly good for documents, clothes, gifts and non-urgent items. As a rough guide, registered air mail starts around ฿1,020 ($30) and takes 10–14 days; EMS World starts around ฿1,550 ($46) and takes about 3–5 days by air. At the light end (around 1 kg) Thailand Post is the cheapest way to send internationally. You can check live rates on the official calculator at international.thailandpost.com.
DHL, FedEx and UPS cost more but are faster and more reliable, with better tracking and smoother customs clearance at the destination. The gap narrows as parcels get heavier — for a 10 kg package the difference can be small (FedEx around ฿8,500 ($251), only a few hundred baht more than EMS) — so for anything heavy, valuable or time-sensitive, the premium carriers are often worth it. All three have offices and drop-off/pickup arrangements in Chiang Mai:

Mae Ping Post Office
The Thailand Post branch most newcomers use — just east of the Old City by the river, handles EMS World and international air mail. Phone 053-252037.
24 Praisani Rd, Chang Moi, Mueang Chiang Mai 50000 · Map
Chiang Mai Post Office (Charoen Muang)
The larger city post office, near the railway station. Same services as Mae Ping, usually quieter for parcel work.
406/1 Charoen Muang Rd, Wat Ket, Mueang Chiang Mai 50000 · Map
DHL Express Service Point (Chiang Mai)
Main DHL counter for outbound international express. Additional partner drop-offs exist around the city (Hang Dong Rd, Tha Phae Gate) — confirm before travelling to one.
DHL Store, 201 Mahidol Rd, Hai Ya, Mueang Chiang Mai 50100 · Map
FedEx Chiang Mai (CNXA)
International express drop-off and pickup. Listed hours Mon–Fri 08:30–15:30, Sat 08:30–15:00 — the cut-off is early, so don't arrive late afternoon.
33/5 Moo 4, Somphot Chiang Mai 700 Pi Rd, Mueang Chiang Mai 50000 · Map
UPS Chiang Mai
UPS operates in Chiang Mai through authorised agents rather than a single company office. Third-party listings give conflicting addresses (Chiangmailand Rd, Sriphum Rd, Night Bazaar) — check the UPS site or call before travelling. No address recorded here because sources disagree.
Map

Whichever you use, keep the customs declaration honest and specific, and hold onto the receipt and tracking number. If you're mailing consular paperwork, Consulates & Embassies notes which carriers a given mission will and won't accept.

What you can't post (dangerous & prohibited items)#

The most common shipping surprise for newcomers has nothing to do with customs duty — it's discovering at the counter that the thing in your hand can't be flown at all. Because almost all international and much domestic parcel post moves by air, anything that's a fire or explosion risk is heavily restricted, and Thailand Post enforces this strictly (penalties for sending prohibited goods run up to two years' imprisonment and/or an ฿80,000 ($2,361) fine — you won't hit that for an honest mistake, but the parcel will simply be refused or seized).

The big one that trips people up:

Loose lithium batteries and power banks cannot be sent by air. A power bank, a spare camera or laptop battery, or any loose lithium cell is classed as dangerous goods and is refused by Thailand Post and the express couriers for standard airmail. Batteries are generally only accepted when installed inside the device they power (a phone, a laptop) and within capacity limits — so ship the gadget with its battery in it, never the battery on its own. This catches a lot of people trying to post a phone or a vape back home. Electronics & Tech covers buying replacements locally instead.
Also broadly prohibited or restricted: aerosols and pressurised cans, flammable liquids (perfume in quantity, nail polish, lighter fluid), lighters and matches, magnets, corrosives, anything with a fuel residue, and — obviously — weapons, ammunition and drugs. Vapes and e-cigarettes are illegal to import into Thailand at all and are a bad idea to post in either direction.
Restricted-but-doable with paperwork: Buddha images and antiques need an export licence from the Fine Arts Department; certain foods, plants, seeds and animal products need permits or are barred outright by the destination country. If you're posting anything cultural or agricultural, check both Thai export rules and the destination's import rules first. Live animals are a different process entirely — see Pets & Vets.

If in doubt, ask at the counter before you seal the box, or check Thailand Post's own prohibited-items list. For a valuable gadget with a battery, a tracked courier that accepts declared dangerous goods (DHL/FedEx, with the right paperwork and packaging) is sometimes possible where ordinary post is not — but expect extra cost and forms.

Moving your belongings to Thailand (customs & duty)#

This is the part worth planning carefully, because the rules are both strict and changing.

Duty-free import of household goods is tied to a work permit. Thailand allows a one-time duty-free import of used personal effects and household items, but the standard route requires a valid one-year work permit and, in practice, an original passport, with the shipment arriving within six months of the work permit's issue date. You're generally allowed one air shipment and one sea shipment, the goods must be at least six months old (i.e. genuinely used, not newly bought), and quantities must look reasonable for personal use. If you're coming on a DTV, retirement or education visa without a work permit, you will not usually qualify for this duty-free treatment — this is a common and expensive surprise, so if you plan to ship a container of belongings, talk to a relocation/shipping agent about your specific visa before you book anything. Visas & Visa Agents sets out which visa carries a work permit.

Everything dutiable is taxed at customs duty plus 7% VAT. Duty on common consumer goods ranges from 0% to 35% depending on the category. Cars and vehicle parts, luxury goods, cosmetics, perfume, medicines and certain ceramics attract duty and are scrutinised. Prohibited and restricted items (drones, some electronics, weapons, certain plant/animal products) have their own rules — check before shipping.

The de minimis exemption on small imports is gone. This mainly affects things you order from abroad after you've arrived. Before July 2024, imported parcels under ฿1,500 ($44) were exempt from duty and VAT. Since July 2024 Thailand has charged VAT on essentially all imports, and from 1 January 2026 low-value imports also became subject to customs duty — so the old "cheap stuff from overseas arrives tax-free" era is fully over. Every overseas parcel worth ฿1 or more now attracts 7% VAT plus duty, with duty rates set by product category: roughly 30% on clothing and footwear, ~20% on bags and accessories, and 10–20% on most everyday consumer goods and electronics accessories. Budget for it on anything you buy from an overseas seller, and check first whether a domestic Lazada/Shopee seller can supply the same item.

How the new tax is actually collected. In practice you'll meet it one of two ways. On the big platforms — Lazada, Shopee, TikTok Shop, Temu and Shein, which have all signed data-sharing agreements with Thai Customs — the duty and VAT are calculated and added at checkout, so the price you confirm is the full landed cost and nothing is owed on delivery. For parcels arriving through Thailand Post or a courier, tax is instead assessed on the parcel itself: Thailand Post will ask you to settle it (often by QR/PromptPay or at the post office) on delivery or collection, while couriers typically prepay the tax and collect it back from you, plus a small handling fee, when they hand over the box. Either way, keep the item's invoice handy in case the declared value is queried.

For a full container move, most people use a specialist relocation shipper (Siam Relocation, Seven Seas Worldwide, Santa Fe Relocation and similar international movers all operate into Thailand) who handle the customs paperwork, the work-permit documentation and the door-to-door logistics. It costs more than doing it yourself, but customs clearance is where DIY moves go wrong.

This is not tax or customs advice. Duty categories, the work-permit requirement and the post-2024 import-tax changes are complex and enforced unevenly. For anything beyond a few suitcases, confirm the current position with a licensed relocation/customs agent or the official Thai Customs guidance. See also Taxes & Tax Residency for the separate question of income tax.

Buying from shops back home (parcel forwarding into Thailand)#

Sooner or later you'll want something a US or UK store sells but won't ship to Thailand — a specific supplement, a brand of clothing in your size, a hobby part, a gadget that isn't sold here. The standard fix is a parcel-forwarding service: you're given a real address in the US or UK, you order to it as a "domestic" customer, and the service consolidates your parcels into one box and ships it on to Chiang Mai.

MyUS and Stackry are the two best-known. Both give you a US (and, for MyUS, UK) address, hold and combine parcels, and forward via DHL/FedEx/UPS/Aramex. Consolidating several orders into one shipment is the whole point — it can cut the international leg by well over half versus shipping each parcel separately. The main difference is pricing: MyUS charges by actual weight under its "TruePrice" model, while Stackry (like most forwarders) uses dimensional weight, so bulky-but-light items can cost more with Stackry — worth comparing a quote for your specific box.
The catch is landed cost. On top of the forwarding fee you'll pay the international shipping and Thai import duty + 7% VAT on arrival (see Moving your belongings above), so forwarding makes most sense for items that are genuinely unavailable here or much cheaper abroad, not for everyday things a local Shopee/Lazada seller stocks. Get a full quote — forwarding fee + shipping + estimated Thai tax — before you commit. Art & Hobby Supplies flags which specialist categories are genuinely worth forwarding.
A cheaper informal route: if you travel home periodically or have friends and family visiting, having things shipped to their address and brought over in a suitcase avoids the forwarding and international-shipping fees entirely (within personal-allowance limits).

Receiving your home-country mail (mail forwarding & PO boxes)#

Physical post from your home country — bank cards, tax letters, jury summons, the occasional cheque — is the awkward loose end of moving abroad. A few options:

A home-country virtual mailbox / mail-forwarding service (Traveling Mailbox, PostScan Mail, Earth Class Mail and similar in the US; comparable services in the UK) gives you an address back home that scans your incoming mail to an app and forwards or shreds items on request. This is the cleanest solution for anyone who still needs a "real" address in their home country for banking or government post, and it means you're not relying on relatives to open and relay your letters.
Thai-side mail forwarding (services like Thai Nexus and Thai Mail Forwarding) does the reverse — gives you a genuine Thai address that receives and re-forwards post worldwide. More niche, but useful if you want a stable Thai delivery address that survives you changing condos.
A Thailand Post PO box can be rented at a main post office if you want a fixed, secure Thai address for incoming domestic post and don't have a reliable building mailroom. For day-to-day parcels, though, most residents just use their home address plus a 7-Eleven pickup point rather than a PO box.

Bear in mind Thailand's own international inbound letter post can be slow and occasionally unreliable for anything valuable — for important documents from abroad, a tracked courier (or a scan-and-email service) beats ordinary airmail.

Moving house within Chiang Mai#

Separate from the big international container move, most residents change apartments at least once — the first place you rent sight-unseen for a soft landing is rarely the one you stay in. Local moving here is cheap and easy, with a few options depending on how much stuff you have:

DIY with a hired pickup / "song thaew" truck. For a studio or one-bedroom's worth of boxes, the cheapest route is to hire a pickup truck with a driver for an hour or two — often arranged through your building, a Facebook expat group, or a local mover — for roughly ฿300–800 ($9–24) within the city, and do the lifting yourself. A one-tonne truck swallows a surprising amount. Getting Around explains the songthaew system generally.
A local removals company for a full flat/house. Firms like Chiang Mai Removals (long-established, expat-facing, English-speaking) and general movers found via aggregators like GoThaiMover handle packing, loading and reassembly. As a rough guide, a within-city move starts around ฿500 ($15) for a minimal load, a typical apartment move runs into the low thousands (a ~20 m³ load in the city is often quoted around ฿4,000 ($118)), and a full-service pack-and-move adds roughly ฿2,000–6,000 ($59–177) on top depending on volume and how much you want them to wrap. Moves out to the fringes (Hang Dong, San Sai, Mae Rim, San Kamphaeng — see Suburban & School-Corridor Guides) cost a bit more for distance but are still modest.
Get 2–4 quotes and book ahead. Prices vary widely and comparing a few offers commonly cuts the bill by a third or more. Availability tightens around month-end (when most leases turn over) and during high season, so line up your mover a couple of weeks out rather than the day before.

A couple of local realities: lifts in older condos are small and often need to be booked with the front desk for a move, and many buildings restrict move-in/move-out to certain hours — check your building rules first. And remember the TM30 re-registration obligation when you change address (covered on the Where to Live and Visas pages) — your new landlord or building should file it within the required window.

Printing, scanning & documents#

For the inevitable visa-and-admin paperwork, copy shops are everywhere near universities, government offices and the malls, and most will print, photocopy, scan and laminate for a few baht a page. Immigration-related copies (passport photo page, visa stamp, TM30, bank letters) are cheap to run off; keep a small stack of passport-page and visa copies on hand, as you'll be asked for them constantly. Passport photos are done same-day at photo shops and many pharmacies.

Quick reference#

Domestic parcel, cheap & fast: Flash / J&T / Thailand Post — ฿30–60 ($1–2), 1–3 days.
Same-day across town: Grab or Bolt package delivery — ฿60–150 ($2–4), within hours.
Not home much: ship to a nearby 7-Eleven pickup point.
Moobaan/house delivery: always add a GPS pin, a Thai-language village name, and a phone number.
Send abroad, budget: Thailand Post EMS World / registered air mail.
Send abroad, fast/valuable: DHL, FedEx or UPS.
Never post loose: power banks / spare lithium batteries (air-freight banned) — ship the battery inside its device only.
Returning a Lazada/Shopee order: open the return in-app within 7–15 days, drop it at a courier counter, refund lands in ~1–2 weeks; film the unboxing of anything valuable.
Buy from a shop that won't ship here: parcel forwarder (MyUS / Stackry) — consolidate, and budget for Thai duty + VAT on arrival.
Get your home-country post: a virtual mailbox / mail-forwarding service that scans to an app.
Overseas online orders now: expect 7% VAT + duty on every parcel since 1 Jan 2026 — platforms add it at checkout; couriers/Thailand Post collect on delivery.
Changing flats within CM: hired pickup ฿300–800 ($9–24) DIY, or a local mover from ~฿500 ($15) (full service +฿2,000–6,000 ($59–177)) — get 2–4 quotes, book ahead of month-end.
Moving your life here: duty-free import generally needs a work permit within 6 months — get agent advice first.

Sources: Nation Thailand — Thailand's parcel market shake-up; Nation Thailand — online imports taxed from first baht; Khaosod English — customs to tax online imports from 1 baht; Tilleke & Gibbins — removal of low-value import duty exemption; DHL — import duty FAQ, goods from 1 baht (1 Jan 2026); BDO — Thailand new VAT rules for low-value imported goods; Chiang Mai Ambassador — Lazada & Shopee for foreigners; Lazada — returns period & conditions; ExpatDen — Shipping from Thailand; Thailand Post international rates; Thailand Post — international FAQ (prohibited items); Thai Nexus — what you can and can't ship out of Thailand; MyUS — shipping to Thailand; Stackry — shipping from US to Thailand; Thai Nexus — Thailand mail forwarding; Chiang Mai Removals; GoThaiMover — Chiang Mai movers; Siam Relocation — importing personal effects; FedEx — Mueang Chiang Mai shipping location.