Effective January 18, 2013, the Postal Service™ revised Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM®) to reflect a change in the Individual Country Listing (ICL) for Italy to prohibit the shipment of lithium cells and batteries to Italy.
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.
Recently, Italy 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 Italy will be refused if presented for mailing or will be returned to the sender if found in the mailstream.
As a reminder, the article titled “IMM Revision: Shipments of Lithium Batteries to Germany Prohibited” in Postal Bulletin 22351 (11-29-12, page 9) announced that Germany prohibits the inbound shipment of these items.
This prohibition does not apply to shipments to and from APO, FPO, and DPO locations in Italy or Germany.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM)
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Individual Country Listings
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Italy
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, 1-24-13
