Postcrossing is an online project for people to exchange postcards with other project members globally. The project's tag line is "send a postcard and receive a postcard back from a random person somewhere in the world!"[2] The name Postcrossing is a union of the words postcard and crossing, and its origin "is loosely based on the Bookcrossing site".[3]
Members can get details of other randomly selected members to send a postcard to, then receive cards from other random members. Official exchanges between the two members occur only once, but unofficial ongoing swaps between members are possible. As of June 2025[update], Postcrossing had almost 805,000 members in 209 countries and territories,[4] and over 82 million registered postcards had been exchanged.[5]
How it works
To be eligible to receive a postcard, a member must first send one. When a member requests to send a postcard they are given the address of another member and a unique postcard ID (e.g.US-787). They send a postcard to that address with the postcard ID displayed. Costs of postcards and postage fees are the responsibility of the user sending the card. When the recipient registers that postcard ID, the sender becomes eligible to receive postcards.[6] Each member can write profile text visible to the sender which can contain personal information and postcard preferences. The Postcrossing system allows two members to exchange postcards only once. By default, members will exchange postcards with countries other than their own but they can decide to exchange postcards with other users in their own country. Users can express a preference not to send to repeated countries but it does not guarantee that there will be no repetitions.
Initially each member can have up to five postcards traveling at a time. Once five cards are in transit they need to wait for a card to be registered as received before they can request another address. The limit increases as users build experience exchanging cards, up to a maximum limit of 100.[7] A small proportion of postcards do not get registered as received because they get lost en route, have an unreadable ID, or are received by members who are no longer active. The system attempts to adjust for these issues to reduce the difference between the number of sent and received postcards of each member.[citation needed]
Members
Membership is free and anyone with an address can create an account. The greatest numbers of members, known as postcrossers, are in Russia, Taiwan, and the United States.[8] Globally, most postcrossers reside in North America, Europe, and East Asia. As of June 2025[update], about 42% of the combined total of postcards were sent from Germany, the United States, and Russia.[5]
Postcrossing was created by Paulo Magalhães. It was initially a hobby based on his enjoyment of receiving postcards:[9] "The element of surprise of receiving postcards from different places in the world (many of which you would probably never have heard of) can turn your mailbox into a box of surprises–and who wouldn't like that?"[10] He started the website on July 14, 2005, hosted at his home on an old computer in a clothes closet. The project rapidly grew internationally, initially via word-of-mouth then promoted by media attention.
The millionth Postcrossing postcard was received on April 11, 2008.[11][12] The project's popularity continued to accelerate, reaching two million in February 2009.[13] The five millionth postcard was received in August 2010,[14] shortly after the project's fifth anniversary,[15] and the 10 millionth postcard was registered in January 2012.[16]As of 2025[update], approximately one million postcards are registered every two or three months, passing the milestone of 80 million postcards received on January 7, 2025.[17]
The first Postcrossing-themed stamp was released by PostNL in 2011. Since then more than a dozen countries' postal services have followed suit and some released multiple Postcrossing-themed stamps.[107][108][109] The majority of the stamps have been launched in partnership with the Postcrossing community but some "unofficial" stamps displayed the Postcrossing trademark without approval of the Postcrossing organization.
List of official Postcrossing stamps
Some Postcrossing stamps; from left to right, up to down: 1. January 2, 2014 BelarusBelposhta released their own Postcrossing-themed stamp in Belarus; the stamp was designed by Inga Turlo and features the words "Happy Postcrossing" in both English and Belarusian;[108][110] the English text is displayed using many colors and designs; 2.Russia The Russian Post issued a stamp designed by Olga Shushlebina; the stamp shows the words "Я ❤ посткроссинг" (Russian: "I ❤ Postcrossing") and schematic pictures of world sights.[108][111]3.Ukraine4.BelarusBelposhta launched their second Postcrossing-themed stamps in Belarus. The stamp was designed by Marina Vitkovskaya and features the words "Happy Postcrossing" in both English and Belarusian.[112][108]5.Romania6.IndonesiaIndonesia Post presented three new Postcrossing-themed stamps on Postcrossing's 12th anniversary.[113]7.Hungary8.Moldova the Post of Moldova created their first postcrossing-themed stamp featuring postcards zooming around the globe[114]9.Belarus Yauheniya Biadonik designed Belarus' third Postcrossing-themed stamp[115]
Stamps officially backed by the Postcrossing community are posted on the Postcrossing blog:[107]
On October 1, 2019, Postcrossing organised global events to celebrate the postcard's 150th anniversary. Events included postcard exhibitions, special cancellations marks, postcard writing workshops and seminars, commemorative postcards and special stamp issues.[116] Postcrossing organised an exhibition at the Universal Postal Union's (UPU) headquarters in Bern, with postcards from across the world sharing messages about the importance of postcards.[117]
Following the success of these events, in 2020, Postcrossing launched World Postcard Day.[118] Commemorative postcards and special cancellation marks were issued to mark the day.[119] A commemorative postcard for the event was chosen in a competition for design and art students. Special events included online postcard exhibitions, postcard writing workshops and online meetings.[119] A lesson plan was created in eight languages to help teacher introduce postcards to young children in schools. Further events have been held annually since 2020.[120]
1 2 Magalhães, Paolo (January 28, 2021). "Postcrossing Milestones". Postcrossing. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Today I had some time to dig this up and, if I didn't made any mistake, this is the full list:
↑ Khasab (April 19, 2011). "7,000,000 postcards". Postcrossing Official Forum. Archived from the original on May 2, 2011. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
↑ Postcrossing (August 3, 2011). "Postcard FI-1149781 (Finland)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Not many people noticed, but yesterday we crossed the 8 million postcards milestone! 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (November 3, 2011). "Postcard Stats". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. A few hours ago ago we've reached 9 million postcards! Well done, all of you! 😃
↑ Postcrossing (April 4, 2012). "Postcards connecting the world". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Did anyone notice? We hit 11 million delivered postcards! 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (June 12, 2012). "Postcard US-1710034 (U.S.A.)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. This was the charmed postcard number 12 million:
↑ Postcrossing (August 22, 2012). "Postcard HK-45392 (Hong Kong)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Yay! We hit 13 million received postcards some hours ago - congratulations everyone! 🙂 Here's the lucky card:
↑ Postcrossing (March 4, 2013). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Yay! We've reached 16 million registered postcards! That's a lot of happy mailboxes around the world! Well done everyone! 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (September 2, 2013). "Postcard UA-737378 (Ukraine)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. We just reached 19 million postcards! The lucky postcard was from Ukraine to Germany! Happy Postcrossing everyone! 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (February 5, 2015). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Hurraaaaay! We just reached 28 million exchanged postcards! Congratulations everyone! 🙂 Check out postcard number #28,000,000:
↑ Postcrossing (April 3, 2015). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Yesterday we reached 29! MILLION! POSTCARDS! Hurray! Only 1 million left for the big 30! 🙂
↑ Ana (meiadeleite) (June 2, 2015). "30 Million Postcards!". Postcrossing. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
↑ Postcrossing (August 5, 2015). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Another couple of months, another million postcards registered — hurray! 😃 Here's postcard number #31,000,000, sent from Netherlands to the Philippines:
↑ Postcrossing (December 6, 2015). "Postcard NL-3242698 (Netherlands)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Did you notice we reached 33 million received postcards yesterday? 🙂 Hurray! Here's the lucky Dutch card, registered in Japan! 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (February 5, 2016). "Postcard FI-2619857 (Finland)". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. We reached 34 million postcards yesterday, with this pretty card which traveled from Finland to Germany!
↑ Postcrossing (May 31, 2016). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Woohoo! We juuuust hit 36 million postcards! That's a lot of postcards!
↑ Postcrossing (August 2, 2016). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Hurray! We just reached 37 million exchanged postcards!! That's a loooot of smiles all over the world Here's the lucky card number 37,000,000:
↑ Postcrossing (October 4, 2016). "Postcard NL-3579375". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Woohoo! We've just reached 38 million postcards! 🎉 Postcard #38,000,000 is lovely, and traveled from the Netherlands to the USA in 10 days. 🙂
↑ Postcrossing (December 7, 2016). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Hurray! We reached 39 million postcards earlier today! 🎉 Congratulations everyone! Here's lucky postcard #39,000,000 which traveled from Taiwan to the USA:
↑ Ana (meiadeleite) (February 13, 2017). "40 Million Postcards!". Postcrossing. Retrieved January 24, 2021.
↑ Postcrossing (April 17, 2017). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Woohoo! The week is off to a great start — postcard number 41 million just got registered! 🎉 Here it is:
↑ Postcrossing (June 28, 2017). "Postcard US-4715663". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. We've just reached 42 MILLION registered postcards! 🎉🎉🎉 Hurraaaaaaay! 🎉 Here's lucky postcard 42,000,000:
↑ Postcrossing (March 20, 2018). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Look at that! We just crossed the 46,000,000 registered postcards on the project! 🎉 Hurraaaaaay!
↑ Postcrossing (August 7, 2018). "Status update". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Did you hear the news? Yesterday we hit the milestone of 48! 🎉 MILLION! 🎉 POSTCARDS! 🎉 Hurray and congratulations everyone!
↑ Postcrossing (May 13, 2019). "Postcrossing postcard RU-7247664 from Russia". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. Lucky postcard number 52 million has just been registered — hurray! 🎉 It's super cute and it traveled over 3300km... within the same country.
↑ Postcrossing (December 18, 2019). "Postcrossing postcard DE-8811634 from Germany". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. We've just passed the 55 million registered postcards! Hurray! 🎉 The lucky card features two very famous sisters, and traveled from Germany to Belgium in just three days. ❄️
↑ Postcrossing (February 28, 2020). "Postcrossing postcard NL-4570321 from Netherlands". Facebook. Retrieved February 3, 2025. We crossed the 56 million postcards mark earlier today! 🎉 Here's the lucky card, featuring a royal family: [URL] Congratulations everyone, what an amazing number!
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