BFPO, the British Forces Post Office are responsible for postal services to the British Forces worldwide. If you are planning to send letters or parcels to friends or family to or from a BFPO address in time for Christmas, BFPO have put together the following advice.

1. Try to send your Christmas cards and gifts early to ensure they arrive at their destination in good time for Christmas.
2. For safety reasons ensure that you do not include any prohibited items in your packages i.e. Aerosols. If your package or parcel contains a prohibited item it will be removed and will have the prohibited item removed before being sent on to the destination address causing a delay to all mail items on that particular day. During the busy Christmas period this can lead to your package missing the latest date of posting for guaranteed delivery and not being received at the destination until after the Christmas period. For more information on prohibited items click here.
3. Ensure you write the address clearly on the letter or package and that the BFPO number is the last line of the address, this will aid in the address being automatically read first time at the BFPO sorting office. For more information on how to address your mail click here.
4. BFPO aims to process all Christmas mail within one day of arriving at the BFPO sorting office for onward movement to fixed bases worldwide

Postage Deadlines for Christmas 2009

1^st Dec     

• BFPO to BFPO Inter Command (1st Class Airmail)

 4^th Dec   

• BFPO 622 (1st Class Airmail)
• Worldwide Civilian Addresses Airmail to: South/Central America, Caribbean, Africa, Middle East,  Far East (except Japan), Asia, New Zealand and Australia
• UK to Operational BFPO's (1st Class Airmail)
• HM Ships: BFPOs 200 - 490 (1st Class Airmail)

10^th Dec    

• USA, Canada, Japan and Eastern Europe

11^th Dec    

• Western Europe

16^th Dec    

• UK to static: Non Operational, BFPOs: except 622 (1st Class Airmail)
• BFPO to BFPO: Intra Command (1st Class Airmail)

21^st Dec    

• Within UK (1st Class)
• BFPOs to UK Addresses (1st Class Airmail)

You can find out more from the official BFPO web site by following this link;

http://www.bfpo.mod.uk/latest_dates_posting.htm