The Caribbean is not a place you can plan one shipment for. Two of its lanes are shut at the postal counter today, two of its most-searched destinations are United States territories that need no customs form at all, and the independent islands set their own weight ceilings and their own prohibitions island by island. This page maps those seams and hands you off to the page for the exact island. Every status below was read from the Postal Service pages on 2026-08-08.
A territory, a suspended lane and a sovereign customs house can sit within sight of each other.
Before weighing a box for the region, check whether the island is accepting mail at all. The Postal Service keeps a live list of destinations where every international service is suspended, and the Caribbean has two entries on it.
| Destination | Status on 2026-08-08 | What that means for a sender |
|---|---|---|
| Haiti | All services suspended since 15 November 2024 | The counter will not accept the box; wait for the alert to lift |
| Cuba | All services suspended since 30 January 2026 | Newly closed this year; the previous lane no longer runs |
| Jamaica, Bahamas, Barbados, Dominican Republic, Trinidad and Tobago | Open | Accepting mail, each under its own country listing |
| Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands | Domestic | Ordinary domestic labels, no customs form |
The reason attached to both closures is the same phrase the Postal Service uses across its suspension list: a want of transportation. That wording matters, because it means the lane can reopen the moment carriage returns rather than waiting on a policy change. On the wider rim of the region Venezuela is suspended as well, which is why our Venezuela page leads with that fact rather than a weight chart.
The two Caribbean destinations Americans mail to most, Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands, are the two that behave least like the rest of the region. Both are United States territory, so a parcel to them is a domestic parcel.
Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands take a domestic label. There is no customs declaration to fill, no import duty at the far end, and the price behaves like any interstate box. The Puerto Rico page and the Virgin Islands page carry the specifics.
Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic and the rest each run their own customs house. A parcel needs a customs form, clears at the island end, and can attract duty and a value added tax the recipient settles before release.
Haiti and Cuba accept nothing by post from the United States as of the date above. A box packed for either sits until the suspension is withdrawn, so the plan there is patience rather than a product choice.
Getting this split wrong is expensive in time. A sender who fills a customs form for a Puerto Rico box has done unnecessary work; a sender who omits one for a Kingston box has a parcel that stalls in clearance. The category decides the paperwork before the scale ever does.
There is no single Caribbean rulebook to work from. The Postal Service publishes one listing per island, and two islands a short hop apart can set weight ceilings that are nowhere near each other. The Bahamas and Barbados show the gap plainly.
| What a sender checks | Bahamas | Barbados |
|---|---|---|
| Priority Mail International weight ceiling | 22 lb | 44 lb |
| Priority Mail Express International weight ceiling | 22 lb | 66 lb |
| Express service reaches | Freeport, Nassau and Paradise Island only | No served-city limit published |
| A distinctive prohibition | Skimmed milk in tins | Only radioactive materials listed |
The 22 lb ceiling on the Bahamas is the one to stare at, because it is roughly half of what the same two products carry to Barbados. A packed carton of shoes, tinned goods and school supplies clears 22 lb without effort, which throws a Bahamas shipper back onto a lighter box or a private-carrier route the Postal Service does not price. Barbados, by contrast, prohibits almost nothing by name. The same box is a different problem depending on which island the label reads.
On the open islands the working products are Priority Mail International, Priority Mail Express International and First-Class Package International Service, each subject to the per-island ceiling in that island's listing. The lightest tier tops out at 4 lb on most of the region, so a box of any real size sits on the parcel or express product.
The fastest postal tier, marketed as “Global Express Guaranteed”, has shown as suspended across the Caribbean since 29 September 2024, so a checklist written before that date is planning around a service that has not run in almost two years. One piece of good news cuts the other way: the separate list of destinations where the Priority Mail Express International delivery commitment is withdrawn contains no Caribbean nation. The islands that accept express still carry its delivery commitment, which is not true of several European lanes.
This site's checkout prints United States domestic parcel labels, so a crossing to a sovereign island is not something it sells, and no island postage figure appears anywhere on this page. A number invented at this end is one nobody could vouch for on the day it was clicked.
A box moving inside the United States, a domestic hop to Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands included, clears the calculator in a minute or two. For a crossing to Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic or another independent island, send the carton size, an honest account of the contents, the packed weight and the destination to freight review, and a person chooses the right product and puts a figure on it. Check the island is open before anything else, since two of them are not.
Two islands are. The Postal Service lists Haiti as suspended since 15 November 2024 and Cuba since 30 January 2026, both for want of transportation, on its International Service Alerts page read 2026-08-08. Jamaica, the Bahamas, Barbados, the Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago are not on that list.
No. Both are United States territories, so a package travels on an ordinary domestic label with no customs declaration and nothing to clear. That is the single largest split in the region, because every independent island needs a customs form and its own duty clearance.
No, and treating it as one is the common mistake. There is no Caribbean country listing. The Postal Service publishes a separate page per island, and neighbors a short flight apart disagree on weight ceilings, served cities and what may be mailed at all.
The country listings set different ceilings. The Bahamas caps both Priority Mail International and Priority Mail Express International at 22 lb, while Barbados carries 44 lb on the ordinary parcel and 66 lb on the express one, per the listings read 2026-08-08.
Priority Mail International, Priority Mail Express International and First-Class Package International Service reach the open islands, with per-island ceilings. Global Express Guaranteed has shown as suspended across the region since 29 September 2024, and no Caribbean nation sits on the express delivery-commitment suspension list.
Suspension lists move without notice, and an island lane can open or close between one week and the next. Everything above is the state of those pages on 2026-08-08; check the listing for the specific island again before you buy postage.