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!" The name Postcrossing is a union of the words postcard and crossing, and its origin "is loosely based on the Bookcrossing site".
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. , Postcrossing had more than 806,000 members in 208 countries and territories, and over 88 million registered postcards had been exchanged.
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). Afterwards, they will 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. 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. 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get registered as received because they get lost en route, have an unreadable ID, or are received by members who are no longer active.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.
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. Globally, most postcrossers reside in North America, Europe, and East Asia. , about 42% of the combined total of postcards were sent from Germany, the United States, and Russia.
+ Countries with most users Rank Country Users1.112,6812.107,7543.84,2264.69,6675.66,4186.35,5987.29,3088.27,3049.21,94210.21,01511.20,65312.18,39013.14,67314.14,15315.11,685 + Countries with most sent postcards Rank Country Sent postcards1.16,134,0742.11,910,6093.9,521,4834.5,968,7485.4,792,5326.3,700,0847.3,407,2978.3,161,7649.2,345,37310.2,125,61611.1,878,17412.1,835,67813.1,761,44614.1,734,51715.1,602,957 Tables last updated October 1, 2026
History Postcrossing was created by Paulo Magalhães. It was initially a hobby based on his enjoyment of receiving postcards: "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?" 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. The project's popularity continued to accelerate, reaching two million in February 2009. The five millionth postcard was received in August 2010, shortly after the project's fifth anniversary, and the 10 millionth postcard was registered in January 2012. , approximately one million postcards are registered every two or three months, passing the milestone of 85 million postcards received on January 19, 2026.
Postcard Milestones
Million Date Time (UTC) From To Postcard 1 April 11, 2008 3:03 pm TR-8482 2 February 26, 2009 6:34 am DE-292437 3 September 24, 2009 4:09 pm FI-637138 4 March 28, 2010 10:14 am CZ-48446 5 August 24, 2010 7:14 pm IT-98823 6 December 30, 2010 12:03 pm ES-97547 7 April 19, 2011 6:59 pm CN-357628 8 August 2, 2011 11:28 am FI-1149781 9 November 3, 2011 5:13 am CN-450151 10 January 27, 2012 4:56 pm JP-232027 11 April 3, 2012 8:04 pm US-1615550 12 June 12, 2012 6:28 pm US-1710034 13 August 22, 2012 5:08 am HK-45392 14 October 25, 2012 8:52 pm NL-1464473 15 December 31, 2012 1:46 pm DE-1800737 16 March 4, 2013 7:21 am UA-487482 17 May 1, 2013 12:20 am RU-1658153 18 July 3, 2013 6:57 am FI-1791281 19 September 2, 2013 9:56 am UA-737378 20 October 29, 2013 5:49 am US-2449004 21 December 23, 2013 10:54 pm NL-2232945 22 February 17, 2014 3:03 pm NL-2339217 23 April 10, 2014 10:47 am DE-3043747 24 June 8, 2014 12:40 pm LV-150063 25 August 10, 2014 11:02 am NL-2612179 26 October 10, 2014 3:36 am US-3009516 27 December 7, 2014 2:05 am JP-612910 28 February 5, 2015 7:13 pm NL-2863567 29 April 2, 2015 4:04 pm NL-2930266 30 June 2, 2015 12:27 am DE-4221494 31 August 5, 2015 11:39 am NL-3078076 32 October 6, 2015 6:40 pm RO-109708 33 December 5, 2015 11:37 am NL-3242698 34 February 4, 2016 7:41 pm FI-2619857 35 March 31, 2016 11:49 pm HK-407034 36 May 31, 2016 6:34 pm CN-1943122 37 August 2, 2016 7:08 pm RU-4866496 38 October 4, 2016 4:09 pm NL-3579375 39 December 7, 2016 7:56 am TW-2105862 40 February 13, 2017 6:39 am TW-2118751 41 April 17, 2017 10:46 am CZ-1159412 42 June 28, 2017 6:15 pm US-4715663 43 September 2, 2017 2:23 pm CN-2281671 44 November 7, 2017 10:46 pm RU-6019041 45 January 16, 2018 6:26 pm AU-590448 46 March 20, 2018 6:00 pm DE-6951547 47 May 28, 2018 8:03 am US-5301280 48 August 7, 2018 3:47 am US-5456394 49 October 16, 2018 1:32 am RU-6804601 50 December 27, 2018 7:13 pm IL-60207 51 March 4, 2019 10:56 am SI-174914 52 May 13, 2019 5:47 am RU-7247664 53 July 25, 2019 5:25 am US-6129158 54 October 7, 2019 5:27 pm FR-1208264 55 December 18, 2019 4:56 pm DE-8811634 56 February 28, 2020 11:49 am NL-4570321 57 June 5, 2020 7:15 pm DE-9251821 58 August 28, 2020 9:17 am CZ-1723155 59 November 10, 2020 8:51 pm TW-3064528 60 January 24, 2021 10:17 am BY-2711325 61 April 1, 2021 12:57 am NL-4843833 62 June 8, 2021 12:01 am CN-312010063 August 18, 2021 07:12 am US-7750150 64 October 26, 2021 1:07 pm FI-4039073 65 January 4, 2022 8:39 pm FR-1467922 66 March 9, 2022 7:44 pm FI-4130313 67 May 25, 2022 1:11 pm CN-3322046 68 August 10, 2022 6:13 pm SK-278899 69 October 22, 2022 7:18 pm US-8785398 70 January 4, 2023 11:36 pm US-9001590 71 March 14, 2023 12:32 pm DE-12712886 72 May 28, 2023 1:36 pm DE-13026949 73 August 12, 2023 7:35 pm DE-13280232 74 October 25, 2023 7:35 pm US-9786292 75 January 8, 2024 3:13 pm DE-13658011 76 March 18, 2024 8:32 pm US-10179025 77 June 6, 2024 8:58 am DE-14252655 78 August 16, 2024 12:46 pm DE-14335070 79 October 27, 2024 8:52 pm AU-960950 80 January 7, 2025 2:32 am NL-5891077 81 March 18, 2025 5:50 pm US-11216678 82 June 3, 2025 2:20 am US-11400700 83 August 22, 2025 11:36 am CN-4084219 84 November 2, 2025 11:20 am DE-15871132 85 January 19, 2026 1:06 am US-1198617886 March 27, 2026 6:27 pm ES-88846887 June 9, 2026 3:02 pm DE-1676827088 August 24, 2026 10:12 pm US-12743087
Postcrossing-themed stamps 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. 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
Stamps officially backed by the Postcrossing community are posted on the Postcrossing blog: PostNL, October 2011 Posti (Finland), September 2013 Belposhta (Belarus), January 2014 Guernsey Post, May 2014 Russia Post, January 2015 Slovenia Post, May 2015 Czech Post, September 2015 Ukrposhta (Ukraine), October 2015 PostNL, March 2016 Austria Post, May 2016 Polish Post, July 2016 Guernsey Post, July 2016 Belpochta, January 2017 Romfilatelia (Romania), February 2017 Indonesia Post, July 2017 Swiss Post, September 2017 An Post (Ireland), October 2017 Magyar Posta (Hungary), February 2018 Moldova Post, June 2018 Åland Post, 7 June 2019 Brazil Post, July 2020 Guernsey Post, June 2021 Belpochta, June 2021 Austria Post, July 2021 Post Luxembourg, September 2022 Deutsche Post, October 2022 NZ Post, August 2024 Polish Post, October 2024 bpost, June 2025 PostNL, July 2025 United States Postal Service, May 2026
World Postcard Day (October 1st) 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. 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.
Following the success of these events, in 2020, Postcrossing launched World Postcard Day. Commemorative postcards and special cancellation marks were issued to mark the day. 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. 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.
See also Chain letter Deltiology Gift economy QSL card Slowly (app)
References
External links
Postcrossing Official Forum Postcrossing Facebook Page World Postcard Day website Interviews with Postcrossers from Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Ghana, South Africa, and Tanzania