Say goodbye to the traditional envelope and seal. The European country has decided to eliminate the mail delivery service after 401 years of history. The last letter was sent this Tuesday by the postal service to Enigma, the Museum of Communication in Copenhagen, located in the Osterbro neighborhood, where it will be included as a permanent part of the exhibition.
Along with the cards, one of its most recognizable urban icons has also progressively disappeared from Danish streets: the red mailboxes. In fact, during the second half of 2025, Postnord has begun the removal of nearly 1,500 public mailboxes distributed throughout the country. A thousand of them were put on sale online for prices between 195 and 270 euros, selling out in a matter of days. And, as the company itself has highlighted, it is “a small piece of Danish cultural heritage.”
Profits from these mailboxes will be given to charitable projects and, starting in January, another 200 mailboxes – some designed by local artists – will go up for auction. Furthermore, some of them, present for more than 170 years, will end up in museums. The farewell process was completed on December 18, when stamps were officially stopped being sold in .
The reasons behind this decision are its low use and low profitability. Denmark is one of the most digitalized countries in the world and Letter sending has plummeted 90% since 2000. Added to this is the progressive increase in the cost of the service. In 2025, the cheapest, with a delivery time of up to five days, cost around four euros.
“Our responsibility with the universal postal service in Denmark was extinguished with the Postal Law that came into force on January 1, 2024, except for mail for the visually impaired, small islands and international mail during a transition period,” they have defended PostNord, the public company that has given up this service.
Are the letters gone?
Despite saying goodbye to mailboxes and sending letters by mail, the European country will maintain the postal service in package deliveries, especially with the increase in online purchases. Furthermore, as progress has been made EuropaPress, There are other companies that will continue sending letters, such as DAO, specialized in the distribution of printed media. It is expected, according to their estimates, that they will go from 30 million letters in 2025 to around 80 million in 2026.
In Spain the volume of letters has fallen by more than 60% in the last decade, so now the big question is whether Denmark will be an exception or a preview of what could happen in other European countries in the coming years.
