Cost of sending letters and packages abroad to rise

Some prices will increase by more than 30% from Monday

Manx residents sending letters and parcels abroad will see the cost of postage increase next week, with the price of some services set to rise by more than 30%.

The Isle of Man Post Office has published a breakdown of prices for local, UK, Europe and further afield, which come into force on Monday.

Last month, the Island's postal service confirmed the cost of a stamp to send letters to Manx, UK and Channel Island addresses would increase from 73p to 80p - roughly in line with the Island's inflation rate at that time.

The board has since confirmed there will also be price changes for international services, with some areas of the world seeing greater price hikes than others.

If you want to send a 20g letter to the USA from Monday, it will cost £2.72 - a rise of 17p compared to current prices, or a 6.6% increase.

If you're sending it to any other country in the Americas, it will be slightly cheaper at £2.31 per letter - but that's a 32% increase on the current rate.

Sending a letter to Europe will go up by 23% to £1.28, and posting the same size letter to Australia is set to rise by 15.4% to £2.32.

But, if you want tracking on those letters, it'll be just over 16% more expensive from Monday if you're mailing them to Europe, Australia or the Rest of the World, but just over 8% more for the USA.

Sending parcels will also be more expensive from Monday. Shipping a 2kg item to the UK, Isle of Man or Channel Islands will going up by 9.9% to £10.10.

For the same size internationally, it'll be a smaller increase for packages to the USA, Australia and Europe, but a big rise for the rest of the world, as the cost will go up by 17.85% to £32.82.