USA Expats and US Mail Forwarding

Overseas relocation requires tons of preparation. Among the many things that you need to decide is - What to do with your USA mail?

You will keep receiving personal mail in the USA like - mortgage loan bills, life insurance documents, etc'. Some of this mail is quite important. How would manage to read it? Or how would you arrange for it to be sent to your new country?

In the past you would probably ask a friend or a relative to collect the mail for you, go over it and send you via international mail only the important letters.

But with today's technology there is no need to do this anymore. You can be in charge of your personal mail as if you were still living in the USA

How?

There are many expatriate mail service companies that provide US mail forwarding services for USA expats, like:

But before you start browsing those companies let me explain how US mail forwarding works:

Once you open an account you will receive a new address in the USA and an online account. Every mail that arrives to your USA address will be entered to your account. You will get total control over your US mail - You can open and scan, forward, recycle, shred or archive.

If you wish you can request the US mail forwarding company to ship your mail to wherever you live or to anyone else anywhere in the world (Shipping expenses is your responsibility).

Quite simple! However there are 3 important things that you the American expatriate need to do before starting to use USA expats mail forwarding service:

1. Fill out form 1583 - United States Postal Service Application for Delivery of Mail through Agent. This is a must requirement, and all expatriate mail service companies will request that you do this. Why? Because The US postal needs to have your authorization to send all your mail to your chosen US mailing forwarding company.
2. Form 1583 needs to be notarized by a notary public, attorney or equivalent authority. USA expats living outside the U.S. can notarize the document at a US embassy. Please note that some US mail forwarding companies will require that you mail them the original notarized form.
3. To begin to receive your mail at your new US address you will need to fill out a USPS change of address form. You can also request friends and others to send your mail to your new USA mail address.

Earth Class Mail - USA expats can have their postal mail forwarded to one of their processing facilities, and then they can view scanned images of each envelope's exterior (via a secure online account) and instruct earth class mail what to do - open the item and scan the contents for their secure online viewing, recycle it, shred it, archive it, or forward-ship it.

To learn more about Earth Class Mail click here.

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USA2Me - You get complete control on your US mail and packages. You'll know what has arrived as soon as it reaches USA2Me. You can decide where you want your mail or shipment sent to. You can even have your documents scanned for urgent review.

If there is mail you do not need you can decide to discard it so that it is not shipped to you. You can also request repackaging to reduce the size and weight of your shipment which usually results in reduced shipping costs

To learn more about USA2Me Click Here

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MyUS - Assist USA expats to receive mail and packages while living abroad. As a MyUS.com member, you have 24/7 access to your online account information, including status of all received merchandise. Once a package or mail arrives you will receive an e-mail notification with the sender's name, approximate weight of package and the date and time of arrival. You can choose your shipping preferences - hold, weekly, biweekly, or monthly. MY US will consolidate mail and packages to save you money on international shipping.

To learn more about MyUS click here

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