Effective November 29, 2012, the Postal Service™ is revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM®) to reflect a change in the Individual Country Listings (ICLs) to prohibit the shipment of lithium cells and batteries to Germany.
The article titled “IMM Revision: Outbound Mailing of Lithium Batteries” in Postal Bulletin 22350 (11-15-12, page 15) announced new mailing standards that removed the prohibition against mailing lithium metal or lithium-ion batteries internationally, or to or from any Army Post Office™ (APO), Fleet Post Office (FPO), or Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) location, when not restricted or prohibited by the destination country or the APO, FPO, or DPO location.
However, subsequent to the submission of that article, Germany formally advised the Postal Service that it is prohibiting the inbound shipment of these items.
Consequently, shipments of electronic items containing lithium cells and batteries destined to Germany will be refused if presented for mailing or will be returned to the sender if found in the mailstream.
This prohibition does not apply to shipments to and from APO, FPO, and DPO locations in Germany.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM)
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Individual Country Listings
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Germany
Country Conditions for Mailing
Prohibitions
[Insert the following entry in alphabetical order:]
Lithium cells and batteries — including items containing lithium cells and batteries under 135.6.
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We will incorporate this revision into the next update of the online IMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification,
Pricing, 11-29-12
