Pecohub Starting next year, Denmark will no longer have “red mailboxes.” This is because, as Denmark’s society accelerates its digitalization, the postal service has decided to discontinue its letter delivery service, which it has maintained for over 400 years.
According to the UK Guardian on the 21st, PostNord, which is responsible for Denmark’s postal service, announced that it will completely halt letter delivery as of the 30th of this month.
PostNord stated, “As digitalization accelerates, letters have sharply decreased,” and added, “From 2026, we will stop the letter delivery service and focus our capabilities on parcel delivery due to the increase in online shopping.”
Denmark is the first country in Europe, where national-level official postal systems were established, where a state-run postal service will completely discontinue letter delivery. Although Denmark introduced an official postal service in 1624, it has been found that the volume of letters sent has decreased by over 90% over the past 25 years.
The Danish government’s push for “national digitalization” has had no small influence on this. Unlike other European countries, where public institutions, banks, hospitals, and others still primarily use postal mail for administrative tasks, Denmark has already generalized the sending and receiving of official documents via email.
Additionally, through the government’s digital identity authentication system “MitID,” it is possible to handle online banking, electronic document signatures, hospital reservations, and more. Although physical document receipt can still be chosen, it is said that 97% of the population aged 15 and over has registered with MitID.
As the letter delivery service ends, the red mailboxes that have stood on Denmark’s streets for hundreds of years are also expected to disappear into history.
PostNord has already removed thousands of mailboxes and announced plans to eliminate an additional 1,500. Among the already removed mailboxes, 1,000 in good condition were sold at auction earlier this month for 2,000 Danish kroner each, approx. 460,000 Korean won.
