The emotions expressed on paper have come to a halt as they are unable to keep pace with the speed of internet. In the age of email, messaging, WhatsApp and video calls, such emotions are treated as a social outcast, just like senior citizens. Hence, Denmark has become the first country in the world to completely shut down its national postal service, PostNord.

PostNord is one of Denmark’s oldest public services as the Scandinavian country introduced the service way back in 1624. The state-owned agency announced on December 30, 2025 that it decided to stop delivering letters after 401 years, stressing that the Danes have become so reliant on digital communication that the postal service was no longer needed.

The local media reported that Denmark ended its postal service on December 30, 2025 after delivering the final letter. With this, roughly 1,500 mailboxes throughout the north-western European country were taken down and an estimated 1,500 of PostNord’s 4,600 employees were decided to be laid off. In a statement, PostNord has mentioned that citizens no longer rely on the postal system, except for parcel delivery. Also, they no longer write letters to their loved ones. At the same time, official correspondence is now entirely dependent on the internet system. Therefore, the agency has decided to upgrade itself by improving its parcel services, considering a huge hike in online shopping in the country.

Kim Pedersen, the Chief Executive of PostNord Denmark, has admitted that a change in culture prompted them to make the difficult decision. He believes that there is no justification for keeping a government service running unnecessarily. “We have been the Danes’ postal service for 400 years and therefore, it is a difficult decision to put a bow on that part of our story. The Danes have become more and more digital which means that there are very few letters left for us to handle today, and the downturn continues so clearly that the market for letters is no longer profitable,” said the Chief Executive. Pedersen has also described the move as historic, stating: “We are ending letter distribution after centuries, but we are opening a new chapter where Danes need us most: in e-commerce, where parcels now outnumber letters.”

According to sources close to the Government of Denmark, the volume of letters has decreased by over 90% in the first quarter of the 21st Century. While PostNord delivered nearly 1.5 billion letters nationwide in the year 2000; the number dropped to around 110 million in 2024. As a result, the agency has been incurring financial losses for the past few years. On the other hand, digital mailboxes, mobile payments and other online services have grown steadily. With the arrival of more and more new services, envelopes and stamps have become completely outdated.

Speaking at a media conference, PostNord’s Head of Press Isabella Beck Jorgensen said: “For the past 20 years, we have seen a major decline in letters in Denmark; the majority of all our communication is now electronic. We are one of the most digitalised countries in the world.” Interestingly, the physical symbols of Denmark’s postal era have already disappeared as PostNord has been removing its 1,500 iconic red mailboxes from across the country since June 2025. When many of them were put up for sale for charity in December, the demand was indeed overwhelming. “The interest was enormous, hundreds of thousands of people tried to buy a post box when they were put on sale,” Jorgensen stressed, adding that more would be auctioned and others preserved in museums.

Meanwhile, PostNord, which delivers post in neighbouring Sweden as well, has assured the Swedes that the delivery of letters in their country would not be affected.

Meanwhile,

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das