There are a few ways you can go about receiving mail and packages in Granada, Nicaragua. We’ve tried one thoroughly, and just recently a second.
Nicabox / TransExpress
The first method we tried was through Nicabox. You’ve no doubt already heard of this if you’ve done any research on the subject at all, but if this is your first stop, let me enlighten you. Nicabox is a service provided by TransExpress.com. What this service does is give you a P.O. Box in Florida that you can have all of your mail and packages (Amazon, Ebay, gifts, etc.) sent to. They will then gather them up and bring them to your doorstep in Nicaragua.
Packages they bring in have to go through customs. So any time I had a package come in I would get an email from them indicating the customs fee. I would then have to physically go to a local bank here and deposit that amount into their account. After emailing them confirmation of this, they would send the package out for delivery and it would show up at our doorstep in a few days.
The main problem with this service was receiving simple letters and bills. Each one they would charge us about $10 USD to bring over and without warning! We’d just get a notice that our card had been charged and the letter was on it’s way. The way we thought the service was supposed to work (and the way it should, in my opinion) is that we would be made aware of the mail we’d received in Florida and then be able to decided whether we wanted it brought to Nicaragua or not, but this was never the case. It was always just shipped out and we were charged.
Here are a few similar services you might check out, although I haven’t tried them personally:
Granada, Nicaragua Post Office Box
What we have since done is to actually get a post office box at the official post office here in Granada on Calle El Arsenal. Apparently you can have mail sent here without getting a post office box. Simply have the sender put your name on it and they will hold it there for you. If you know you are going to have something coming your way, just stop by the post office every day until it arrives. However, we wanted something a bit more official, since we plan to have all of our U.S. correspondence diverted here. Having a box gives us peace of mind that our mail will be held for us, and it also provides peace of mind to people sending us mail. Folks in the U.S. aren’t too keen with just putting our name on something and hoping the post office holds it. Having a P.O. box guarantees our mail will be there for us.
It was a little confusing getting the box, although largely due to translation complications. The officials in the post office kept asking us for some sort of official document which we assumed to be something the government had to issue us. We even wondered if they they were requesting proof of residency.
Turns out all they needed was a written letter of request from us. That’s it! I just wrote on a piece of notebook paper that we were requesting a post office box and detailed the location of our current house, signed it, dated it, and with a C$350 fee we got a P.O. box for three months!
Addressing a letter to a P.O. box at the Granada post office is pretty simple:
Recipient’s Name
Apartado 555 (or whatever the box number is)
Granada
Nicaragua
3 Comments
Clara
I’m so happy to have found your blog! It looks like you haven’t posted in a while but what you have posted has helped my husband and I a lot! We’re living in Granada for the next few months. We need to ship a new computer charger to us and wanted to know from your experience if we could receive it in the PO box?
Thanks for your help!!
Clif
Thanks! We moved back to The States in March, unfortunately, but I can’t wait to get back to Nicaragua. If you have a package shipped to a PO box at the post office it will get held by customs in the Managua airport and you will have to personally go claim it, which can be quite a time consuming ordeal as I detailed here:
https://gringoingranada.com/bureaucratci-hell-picking-package-customs-survive-hell-earth/
Given that the Holidays are approaching, the customs center might be pretty busy. Regardless, I’d recommend getting there as early as possible. If you’re one of the first few in it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours. If you don’t want to deal with the adventure of this situation, and might be having other packages delivered in the future, then I’d definitely recommend setting up an account with TransExpress. In this case the item is shipped to them…they go through the process of claiming it…then deliver it to your door.
http://www.transexpress.com/
If we had stayed in Nicaragua longer we most likely would have re-established our TransExpress account instead of using our PO address for package deliveries.
Jason
I think i have a better solution, one that took me a while to put together. I live in CR, but I am making my way to NI Dec 1.
I use a service called MailbxoForwarding.com. They give you an option of three different addresses in the U.S. I chose Pompano Beach FL. When they receive a piece of mail for me they send me an email with a link to an image of the exterior cover. At that time I can select Scan, Shred, Forward. So, you can excise junk, you can forward private mail, and you can scan documents that are time sensitive.
Then I use a box through Mail Boxes Etc in Escazu, Costa Rica. They too give me a FL address that routes to my box in Escaxu via the additional address code of SJO1234, or similar.
MBE sends me an email when I have a new letter or parcel, and letters are CHEAP, like $1. If there is tax they ask me to provide a receipt which is then used to calculate the import tax.
This system has workeed extremely wel for me.