kate22

Hello!

Google has failed me and cannot answer my question properly, so I came here.

I need to mail a letter to England from the US. It's in a standard size letter envelope and will only contain one piece of paper, so it will weigh less than an ounce. It will not be priority mail or anything like that, just regular because I do not need it to get there extra fast. The postage must be in first-class stamps from England, which I have. How many stamps do I put on the envelope, though? I can't find the postage price for a letter from the US to the UK, and these stamps do not have a value on them anyways (In the US, it says how much the stamp is worth and then you can calculate how many to put on there!)

Your help is much appreciated!
Thanks!

kate22

Okay I forgot the "m" on from in the title. Whoops.

Rubicund

I don't think that you can mail a letter from the US using UK stamps. You'll need to buy US stamps.

socaltraveler

You cannot mail a letter in the US, or probably any country for that matter, using postage from another country. You will need US postage stamps.

janisj

OK -- I think you are confusing a couple of things. Are you trying to place a self stamped/addressed return envelope INSIDE a letter you are mailing from the US?

If so - you can't. The USPS no longer sells international reply coupons.

If, on the other hand , you are just mailing a letter to the UK . . . you put US postage on it.

BigRuss

<<The postage must be in first-class stamps from England, which I have. How many stamps do I put on the envelope, though?>>

No no no no no. The other posters are all correct. The Universal Postal Union, which has existed in some form since 1874, obligates members to deliver international mail and that the stamps of the member nations are accepted for the entire route. If you buy postage from the USPO sufficient for the cost of the letter, then the UK must accept it. But the USPO does not have to accept UK postage when mailed in the US. Similarly, parcels sent from the UK to the US with Royal Mail duties paid are delivered in the US.

So get this right: mail with US international postage denominated in dollars or you will probably not have your letter delivered.

flanneruk

"I can't find the postage price for a letter from the US to the UK, and these stamps do not have a value on them anyways (In the US, it says how much the stamp is worth and then you can calculate how many to put on there!)"

The other posters are all accurate.

BUT: IN Britain a stamp saying "first" is valid ONLY, really, for a domestic letter weighing less than 100g. In practice, Royal Mail WILL accept it for other letters in part payment, at the current rate. Today that's 62p, and a standard letter to the US is 81p (all letters go by air)

So if you've just mis-expressed yourself and you're trying to send an SAE inside a letter you're sending to Britain, it needs another 19p worth of stamps on top of that 62p. Any stamp saying Second, or a second First stamp, will do if you haven't got 19p or 20p of UK stamps.

janisj

oops . . . I missed the >>which I have<< bit.

So of course you can stick the stamps you have on the SASE.

But if you are asking about mailing a letter to the UK . . . US postage - nothing else will work.

MissPrism

The Royal Mail website is pretty complicated http://www.royalmail.com/sites/defau...tober-2014.pdf
If you scroll down, it looks as though a standard letter to the U.S. is 97p
I'm assuming that your are sending a stamped addressed envelope inside a letter and have British stamps adding up to 97p.

MissPrism

A first class stamp is 62p and second is 53p

chartley

There is no reason why you should not overpay the postage, if you already have some U.K. stamps. That would be better than going to great lengths to get the exact postage. Two second class U.K. stamps would cover the 97p cost for a letter up to 10 grams. It's probably only the USA that still weighs postal items by pounds and ounces.

You can check U.K. postage costs at www.royalmail.com.

The reason that first and second class stamps don't show the price is that a first class stamp is still good for a first class letter even if the prices has gone up between the stamp being purchased and the letter being sent. Some people buy stamps in bulk when they learn that the price is going up. The colour of first class and second class stamps change when the price does.

janisj

My guess is all the discussion of UK postage is merely confusing things since the OP says it is a letter TO the UK and >>I do not need it to get there extra fast.<< so I assume she isn't talking about an SASE

BTW kate22 >>In the US, it says how much the stamp is worth and then you can calculate how many to put on there!<<

Not regular first class 'Forever' stamps which have no denominations on them.

sofarsogood

to answer the OP's question it's $1.15

http://ircalc.usps.com/MailServices....Time=8:00%20AM

whether the OP is asking the right question, who knows?

flanneruk

"If you scroll down, it looks as though a standard letter to the U.S. is 97p"

Quite right for an ordinary letter. The 82p rate takes up to six weeks. I misread http://www.royalmail.com/prices-2014

So if it IS a matter of SAEs, the OP's got only First stamps, and doesn't want to wait six weeks, putting two on is overpaying a bit, but hardly enough to worry about.

Rubicund

From the OP: "standard size letter envelope and will only contain one piece of paper".

If that's all it contains there's no SAE involved. She's just trying to use UK stamps on a letter posted in the US. Doesn't work!

jaja

USPS has $1.15 Forever international stamps now, round in shape to distinguish from domestic. If your local is out, as mine frequently is, they also have a 66¢ domestic version which works nicely with a 49¢ domestic Forever.

kate22

Oh my goodness everyone, thanks for the responses but yes, this is just confusing me even more. Why would I want to put a SASE inside a letter? That makes no sense. Let me put it in simpler terms.

I live in the US.
I have a letter, just one piece of paper, that I wish to put in an envelope and send to the UK.
I do not wish to send an envelope in an envelope, I JUST WANT TO SEND MY LETTER.

Could I have one person simply say "Put this stamp on and you're fine" and solve this? Yikes. So far BigRuss seems to have answered my question, so I will go with that unless I hear otherwise.

I was going to ask about sending a letter or postcard from the UK to the US but I do not quite want to start a war here...

Sassafrass

I thought all the answers were clear, but why not just go to the post office and let them put the correct stamps on?

DebitNM

It is because YOU brought up British stamps.

Simple answer.

Any letter mailed in the US to anywhere needs US Postage. Period.

You must buy enough postage to do so, so take your 1 page letter, put it in an envelope and take it to a US Post office.

They will weigh it and put on the correct amount of postage, either with stamps or from a postage meter, doesn't matter which.

Done.

mamamia2

Simple answer: Air mail stamp from USA to Great Britain is $1.15. You can use ANY stamps to make up that total, even "forever" stamps, based on their current value which is 49 cents.

A good idea would be to add an "AIR MAIL" sticker, or add it in large letters on the side.