Receiving packages in Spain was a new experience for us, the system works very similarly to other countries, but just different enough in it’s nuances that you might want to read on so you can get ahead of the game!
Delivery options:
- Correos (the post office) will deliver packages sent via Correos or a post office in another country.
- Courier service – if you order things online, it will likely come via a courier like Seur
- Overnight/fast delivery like DHL
Correos
Like you’re probably used to in your country, a package sent to your address, generally gets delivered to your address (see farmhouse article about houses with address issues). In the US for example most people have pretty large mailboxes or porches that can accept most regular packages, or a communal place or larger locked mailboxes for packages in an apartment. The main issue we’ve come up against in Spain is there are no allowances like this for packages bigger than a small mailbox, and they’ll need your NIE to leave it, so it means the person delivering has to find you. As you can imagine this leads to logistical problems.
With Correos if you are home when they do their deliveries, they will generally knock on your door/gate. We live outside the city in an urbanization where there is an area with communal mailboxes where all our regular mail goes, the postwoman will come to our house too and try to find us if we have a package. If you are not home, you will get a form in your mailbox and you can take that to pick up your package the next day from the Correos office. This works quite well and efficient from our experience. If there are any fees related to your package (custom fees) you will have to pay in cash if it’s at your house, they do not (yet) carry a cc machine).
Courier services and overnight services like DHL
Courier services are a whole other can of worms! Rest assured you WILL get the package, but how you get it can often be a wonderfully entertaining game of cat and mouse! In our experience most courier services prefer to NOT deliver your package when you first move in, and prefer to have you pick it up instead.
STEP 1: They WILL call you first to see if you are home, if you do not pick up that call, then you will automatically move onto step 2. If you do pick up, and get a person and tell them you’re home, they will 99% of the time then swing by with the package. When we first moved to our house in the mountains I would get a call and then no-one would be on the other end, then I’d get a ‘no-one home’ notice, clearly they had no interest in coming to our house at all – move to step-2 in this instance too, because they didn’t want to deliver it anyway! Often in our apartment, where we lived on the 3rd floor, I would let the person in remotely and they would put the package in the elevator and send the elevator up, no person! Hey it worked!
We have found once we had lived at our house for some time and received a bunch of deliveries it got WAY easier, now all the couriers that deliver around us know we are home and we also have a little spot they can leave packages safely so often they don’t even call us anymore, we just get a ‘delivered’ text. If you do have a house and can figure out a spot to have them leave your packages, that’s ideal.
STEP 2: So what happened to your package? Don’t worry, with all the fun and games we’ve gone through, we’ve never lost a package!
Couriers services have pick-up points that will be pretty close to where you live, we have to usually go to the next town (because our town is small) but once you’ve been there you know where to go and things get easier. Another pick up location will be a local business, most courier services have drop off points, unofficial I imagine, with local restaurants or shops, so I’ve picked up packages in our local pizza place and a local almuerzo restaurant in our little village. They will text you where to go so you know what to do, it’s just not coming to your house anymore.
DHL is a little different as they have to leave it at a DHL point, so you will get notifications with a link before it’s even out for delivery and you can go onto their website and choose a pick up location if you’d prefer this. If it’s a failed delivery they’ll text you where to go. Also you can call (and speak to someone in English if you need to) to find out where your package is and organize a pick-up point convenient for you.
All’s well that ends well!
The more packages you get delivered the easier it gets, and overall remember, it does work! I recommend if you are not able to communicate in Spanish learn “I am home”/ “Estoy en casa” or some simple phrase you can say when they call so that they come to your house. After a while they’ll get used to your address and you’ll get used to the process in your area.
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