Parcels between Italy and Russia: services

Parcels from Russia to Italy and from Italy to Russia in 2026: which services and cargo carriers deliver, what Poste Italiane no longer accepts, customs.

Author: permesso.love editorial team- updated October 12, 2026- 16 min read- how we verify

In short

For a newcomer, the Italian post office is not about postcards. Through Poste Italiane you submit the KIT for the permesso, pay taxes and fines, confirm SPID, receive bank cards and plastic documents by registered mail and, of course, wait for boxes from relatives in Russia. Below is how all of it works in practice: shipping times and prices, tracking, what to do with a notice in your mailbox and why the customs surcharge is not a scam. This is a community-experience overview, not legal advice: tariffs and rules change, so verify the current details on poste.it.

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In short: a parcel from Russia to Italy, per the community, usually goes by Russian Post directly and arrives in 2-3 weeks, and you track it with two trackers - on pochta.ru up to export and on poste.it after it enters the country. In the other direction Poste Italiane now more often does not accept parcels to Russia, and people ship through private forwarders. Times and tariffs change - verify the current details.

In brief: community data

The two-tracker rule: per the community Russian Post tracks the parcel up to export, then the same number is entered on poste.it; a "blind window" of a few days between statuses is normal, not a loss.
Russian Post directly - 2-3 weeks: per the community a rough guide is around 7-10 euro per kilogram, with boxes arriving in as little as 13 days or up to 20; check with the calculator on the site.
avviso di giacenza and storage limits: a regular raccomandata waits about 30 days, court atti giudiziari less, after which compiuta giacenza kicks in - the letter legally counts as delivered.
The customs surcharge is legal: everything from outside the EU is subject to VAT plus a postal clearance fee; per the community a batch of personal-effects boxes ran around a hundred euros.
You can collect for another person by delega: a written authorization plus the notice, your ID and a copy of the recipient's document; check the form on poste.it.

What the law says: duty on a parcel from outside the EU

Customs duty reliefs for parcels and for people moving house are set by Council Regulation (EC) 1186/2009 (text on eur-lex.europa.eu, checked 12.10.2026). These are rules on duty; import VAT is a separate tax and these thresholds do not remove it.

Situation	Rule	Norm
A parcel from a non-EU country worth up to EUR 150	No import duty (except alcohol, perfumes and toilet waters, tobacco)	arts. 23-24
A gift from one private person to another	No duty up to EUR 45 per parcel, if it is occasional, for the personal use of the family and the recipient paid nothing; an item above the threshold cannot be split	arts. 25-26
Personal belongings when you move your residence to the EU	Duty-free if you lived outside the EU for at least 12 consecutive months and used the items there for at least 6 months before the move	arts. 3-5
Deadline to bring in the belongings	Within 12 months of settling in the EU; several consignments are allowed	art. 7
Not covered by this relief	Alcohol, tobacco, commercial vehicles, tools of a trade (except portable instruments of the liberal arts)	art. 6
After duty-free entry	For 12 months the items may not be sold, hired out, pledged or given away without notifying customs	art. 8

When this matters and how to use it. If relatives send a box of things as a gift, the declared value decides the duty: up to EUR 45 from a private person there is none, so the content list should be honest and say it is a gift sent free of charge. If you are shipping your own belongings after the move, that is a different regime - importing personal property: stay within 12 months of the move and have papers on your former residence ready; the ADM forms for a transfer of residence are Mod. F-01 A (without a guarantee) and F-01 B (with a guarantee). The post office's customs clearance fee and VAT are not removed by these rules.

Source: eur-lex.europa.eu, Regulation (EC) 1186/2009 (checked 12.10.2026); forms - adm.gov.it, franchigie doganali (checked 12.10.2026)

Why the post office queue is part of immigrant life

A noticeable share of a newcomer's bureaucracy happens at a Poste Italiane office:

accepting the KIT envelope for the first application and renewal of the permesso (Sportello Amico windows);
paying F24 taxes, utility bollettino slips, fees and fines - in cash or by card;
in-person identification for SPID via Poste ID;
BancoPosta accounts and PostePay cards;
handing out registered letters and parcels that could not be delivered to your door.

The practical takeaway: in big cities take an electronic queue ticket and budget extra time, especially early in the month when pensions and payments are processed. In small towns the same things get done far faster - the community regularly advises going to an office on the outskirts or in a neighboring comune.

By the way, the hologram receipt you get when submitting the KIT (the famous ricevuta) is essentially an ordinary registered-mail receipt: the envelope with your documents travels to the questura precisely as a registered letter. The same kind of receipts is printed when you send any parcels or raccomandata.

Fill the KIT (Mod. 209)On the real form

A parcel from Russia to Italy: what actually works

Russian Post directly

Surprisingly, the basic state channel remains the most reliable one according to community experience. The scheme is:

On pochta.ru you fill in a request for an international shipment: a list of the contents, the goods category, a note that the items are used, and the declared value.
The system generates a barcode, which you need to print.
Not every office accepts international shipments - after you complete the request the site shows a map of suitable locations, and that is where you bring the box with the contents list.

Ballpark figures from the chats (verify with the calculator on the site): roughly 7-10 euros per kilogram; from Moscow and Saint Petersburg people derived a rough rule of "about one ruble per gram". Delivery times - usually two to three weeks door-to-door in Italy; in lucky cases a box made it in 13 days, in less lucky ones in 20.

Our relatives sent us boxes by ordinary Russian Post. I entered the tracking number on the Italian post website - and the status appeared there only when the parcel was already physically in Italy, about four days after "export". We were already getting nervous, and on day thirteen the courier simply rang the doorbell.

community member, rephrasedpersonal opinion

Where to track

The two-tracker rule: the Russian website follows the shipment up to the international exchange point, then the same number goes into the shipment search (Cerca spedizioni) on poste.it. Between the last Russian event and the first Italian one there is almost always a blind window - for several days the parcel is "nowhere". That is a normal situation, not a loss.

CDEK and other alternatives

CDEK: according to the community, it accepts shipments to Italy reluctantly and routes them through the German sorting center of Russian Post, from where the cargo continues as ordinary mail - so three to four weeks or longer, plus there are complaints about losses. For oversized items (for example, a bicycle) quotes came out comparable to the value of the cargo itself.
Forwarders and consolidated cargo via the Baltics: around two months in transit and not cheaper.
Kazpost: if you have someone to ship from Kazakhstan - cheap and fast per community experience, a 10 kg box reached Italy in under two weeks, 20 kg cost around 160 euros.
DHL and FedEx: fast (within Europe it is a matter of days), but they currently do not work directly with Russia, and prices for heavy weight are prohibitive.
The most economical "carrier" when relocating is your own luggage: paying for extra suitcases almost always beats any shipping, and personal belongings on a plane raise no duty questions.

We went through every delivery option to fly light, and in the end we still carried three suitcases and one box. We sent the box via Kazpost - it turned out the cheapest and arrived in about ten days. The express courier, on the other hand, pre-quoted so much for our weight that it was easier to throw everything away and buy it new.

community member, rephrasedpersonal opinion

Home delivery: how the couriers behave

Parcels in Italy are delivered to your address by default - Poste's own courier arm is among those responsible for delivery. Then come the nuances worth knowing in advance:

if nobody is home, the courier must leave a notice, with which you pick up the parcel at the office;
in practice the box may be left at the entrance, by the elevator or by the mailboxes - without a signature;
the tracker may show a "failed delivery attempt" even though nobody rang the doorbell;
if delivery fails several times and they cannot reach you by phone, the shipment goes back to the sender - and stopping the return after the fact is nearly impossible.

So make sure your last name is readable on the mailbox and the intercom: couriers really do call your phone when they cannot find the name on the door, and without a nameplate the odds of "recipient not found" grow. Put an Italian phone number in the address - there is a separate article about the SIM card after relocating.

I spent two weeks calling the hotline: where is my parcel? They kept saying - wait for a call, a letter, everything will come. Then it turned out it had already been sent back: either I was not home, or I "did not answer", or something had to be paid. I filed a complaint and asked to stop the return - they apologized and shrugged.

community member, rephrasedpersonal opinion

Customs (dogana): why they ask for extra payment and whether it is legal

The short answer: yes, it is legal. Everything arriving from outside the EU is formally subject to Italian VAT, and above a certain value also to duty; on top of that the post office adds a fixed customs clearance fee. The amounts are announced at delivery: per community experience, for a batch of several boxes of personal belongings people were asked for around a hundred euros. Sometimes small packages slip through without charges - but that is a lottery, not a rule. By law, a gift from a private person up to EUR 45 and any parcel up to EUR 150 are free of duty, but not of VAT - thresholds and conditions are in the law section above.

What helps you get through customs without adventures:

an honest contents list in an understandable language and a realistic declared value: an understated value is a classic reason to hold a box and request documents;
a note that the items are used and intended for personal use;
readiness to answer a dogana request quickly: they usually ask for the recipient's codice fiscale, a declaration of the contents and proof of value - according to the community, one box out of several can easily get "stuck" until the papers arrive;
for people relocating there is a duty-free regime for importing personal property when transferring your place of residence - see the conditions and lists on the customs website adm.gov.it (Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli);
if you move goods as a business, you will need an EORI number - without it the cargo will be held; it is issued via the same ADM portal, including online with SPID.

A separate topic is sanctions restrictions: some goods categories between the EU and Russia are currently banned from shipping in both directions, and the lists change periodically. Check the current lists before sending and do not try to "repackage" prohibited items - that is no longer about duties, it is about breaking the law.

A common question is whether documents from Russia will arrive. They will: the state postal service works steadily, everything arrives from Kazakhstan too, and something urgent can be passed along with a traveler. The main thing is to enclose an honest contents list and not to write a token value: that is exactly what gets parcels stuck at customs.

permesso.love editorseditors' note

Raccomandata: types, giacenza and why it matters for a migrant

Registered letters are the main official communication channel in Italy. Invitations from the questura, plastic cards (carta d'identita, tessera sanitaria, bank cards), letters from the bank, the comune and the tax agency all come as registered mail. The basic types:

raccomandata semplice - a regular registered letter with a tracking number;
raccomandata A/R (con avviso di ricevimento) - with a delivery confirmation slip that goes back to the sender;
raccomandata 1 - the expedited option;
atti giudiziari - court and administrative acts in the distinctive green envelope (fines, summonses, decisions): these have the strictest delivery regime.

Avviso di giacenza: the notice in your mailbox

If the mail carrier did not find you at home, a notice will appear in your mailbox - the avviso di giacenza. It states at which office and from which day the letter can be picked up. Then the storage mechanics kick in:

a regular raccomandata, per the community, waits at the office about 30 days (registered letters with plastic cards follow their own rules: for example, an unclaimed carta d'identita is returned to the comune after a month);
atti giudiziari have a shorter period, and when it expires compiuta giacenza takes effect - the letter is legally considered delivered even if you never laid eyes on it.

For an immigrant this is no abstraction: a missed registered letter from the questura or the prefettura asking you to supplement documents can cost you the whole case. If you leave for a long time - ask someone to check the mailbox and arrange a delega: with a written authorization, your notice and a copy of your document the letter will be handed to another person. Mail is collected with an identity document; the queue works with the same ticket system.

The digital insurance against paper letters is PEC and domicilio digitale: official correspondence can be switched to electronic form, more in the article on PEC and CIE.

A registered letter with a card arrived while we were away. Luckily I knew the rule: slip in the mailbox, thirty days at the post office - and goodbye. We managed to pick it up on day twenty. But a neighbor ignored a green envelope - and learned about the fine when it already "counted as delivered" and had grown late-payment charges.

community member, rephrasedpersonal opinion

If the post office lost your registered letter with a document (that happens too - the chats describe a case of a vanished carta d'identita), there are two workable paths: press the office for an official statement of non-delivery, or file a denuncia with the police yourself and use it to request a duplicate at the comune. Per experience, the second path is faster.

From Italy to Russia: what to send with

What changed: Poste Italiane and Russia

According to the community, Poste Italiane branches have lately been refusing parcels to Russia, Belarus and Ukraine: "I tried to send a parcel from Italy to Russia through the Italian post - they refused". The raccomandata and pacchi rates below are for reference; in practice people ship through private forwarders (a courier pick-up at home costs around 10 EUR, the price depends on weight), cargo companies, or via Armenia and Kazakhstan. Postcards and documents are also better sent through a private service. Check the current situation at your branch and with the carrier.

Poste Italiane no longer sends parcels to Russia, Ukraine or Belarus. There are private firms that handle shipments: a courier pick-up at home costs about 10 EUR and the parcel price depends on the weight. I always ship through them.

community member, rephrasedpersonal opinion

A small trackable shipment up to 2 kg is raccomandata estero: the limit is 90 cm for the sum of three dimensions; tariff zones and prices are published on poste.it. You can buy a box right at the office and pack on the spot.
Heavier than 2 kg - international pacchi (Poste Delivery International); delivery to Russia has historically taken 2-4 weeks, EMS in better times traveled 10-20 days.
Food is a whole separate story: private Russian-speaking carriers, per the community, take, for example, only hard cheeses in factory vacuum packaging up to 2 kg and allow no more than 5 kg of food per parcel; sanctions and veterinary restrictions apply in this direction too.
Forwarding via a third country (a friend receives it in Yerevan and sends it on to Russia) works, but you pay for two legs, and CDEK on the route adds another 10-14 days.

PostePay and BancoPosta: in brief

The post office is also the biggest "bank next door". Many people get PostePay Evolution with an Italian IBAN as their first card after relocating; you can top it up at the office, at a Postamat and at a tabaccheria; BancoPosta opens accounts for permesso holders, and Italian banks and Poste are required by law to offer a basic payment account (conto di base). At the same time the community describes the opposite too: some offices open an account in one visit, at others "we will call you back" stretches into weeks. A detailed breakdown is in the articles on banks for newcomers and accounts for Russian citizens, and on how to actually get money from Russia to Italy - in the article on transfers from Russia.

A small everyday bonus: F24 tax forms can be paid at the post office (including in cash) - handy while you have no local bank; the forms themselves and the rules are described by the tax agency at agenziaentrate.gov.it.

Official sources

Poste Italiane - raccomandata and international shipping tariffs, shipment search, giacenza and pickup rules.
Agenzia delle Dogane e dei Monopoli - customs thresholds, duty-free import of personal property, EORI.
Agenzia delle Entrate - F24 forms and the codice fiscale that customs will ask for.
SPID - the state digital identity page; SPID can be activated via Poste ID.
eur-lex.europa.eu - Regulation (EC) 1186/2009: parcels up to EUR 150 and gifts up to EUR 45 duty-free, personal property when moving (checked 12.10.2026).

Frequently asked questions

How do I track a parcel from Russia to Italy?

According to the community, tracking works in two stages: the Russian Post website shows movement up to the export point, and then you enter the same number into the shipment search on poste.it. The Italian status usually appears only after the parcel arrives in the country, so between export and the first Italian event there is often a quiet pause of several days - that is normal. This is not legal advice.

What is an avviso di giacenza and how long does a letter wait at the post office?

It is the notice the mail carrier leaves in your mailbox if you were not home for a registered letter. You take it to the indicated office with an ID document. According to the community, a regular raccomandata waits about 30 days, court-related atti giudiziari less, and once the period expires compiuta giacenza kicks in: legally the letter counts as delivered even if you never read it. Check the deadlines on poste.it - this is not legal advice.

Is it legal that they ask for extra payment on delivery for a parcel from Russia?

In general yes: everything arriving from outside the EU is formally subject to VAT and, above certain thresholds, to duty, plus the post office charges a customs clearance fee. According to the community, small amounts (for example, around a hundred euros for several boxes) at delivery are common practice. Check the thresholds and rules on the Italian customs website adm.gov.it - this is not legal advice.

Does CDEK work from Russia to Italy?

According to the community - formally yes, but reluctantly: they accept requests grudgingly, shipments often go through sorting in Germany and continue as ordinary mail, meaning 3-4 weeks or longer, and there are complaints about losses. Many end up choosing Russian Post directly, Kazpost (if you have relatives in Kazakhstan), or simply carrying things as luggage. Check the carriers' current terms - this is not legal advice.

How do I send a parcel from Italy to Russia?

According to the community, Poste Italiane branches now often refuse parcels to Russia (and also to Belarus and Ukraine), so in practice people ship through private forwarders and cargo companies: a courier pick-up at home, the price depends on weight, or via a third country (Armenia, Kazakhstan). The raccomandata estero (up to 2 kg) and international pacchi rates on poste.it are for reference. Some goods categories between the EU and Russia are restricted by sanctions lists, and animal products by veterinary rules. Check the current terms with the carrier - this is not legal advice.

Can I pick up a raccomandata or a parcel for another person?

According to the community, yes - via a simple written delega: the recipient writes an authorization for pickup, and you come with the notice, your ID document and a copy of the recipient's document. Check the form and pickup rules at your local office and on poste.it - this is not legal advice.

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