Ordinary Mail

Ordinary Mail is a basic letter mailing service provided by international postal organizations. The sender will not receive a receipt of mailing, while the recipient will not sign for it. And the post is generally not responsible for the loss of ordinary mails.

Affixing Barcodes

Domestically Mailing

China Post started to affixing barcode to domestic ordinary letters nationwide from September 2018 and domestic ordinary printed matters from August, 2022. Both are 13-digit starting with "7", and shall be handled as registered mail in all internal transit procedures, while external delivery shall follow the standard for ordinary mail.

This barcode is for the internal use of postal authorities only and does not provide external tracking services, and users usually cannot track through the barcode number. However, some courier tracking apps had a loophole allowing the tracking of ordinary mail barcodes, which was fixed at the end of August, 2023.

Internationally Mailing

Hong Kong Post, Macao Post (ePosting machine-only), the Royal Post, Indonesian Post and several other postal service operators have also started affixing barcodes to (some of) exporting international ordinary mails (letters and postcards), with some using the UPU C12 Barcode ("U"-prefixed ordinary mail barcode).

China Post has started to trial affixing tracking barcodes for importing international ordinary mails at Mudanjiang Mail Processing Center because of a 89% loss of international ordinary mails there, as reported and complained by the customers to local postal administration.