Royal Mail Tracking
Track Royal Mail shipments with 17Tracking. Number formats, coverage and what to do when a Royal Mail parcel stops updating.
Quick check: Royal Mail numbers usually look like AB123456789GB. Paste it into the search box on the home page — the carrier is detected automatically.
What Royal Mail tracking numbers look like
- 13 characters ending in GB
- 9–13 character alphanumeric codes
Example: AB123456789GB. Formats vary between service levels, so if your number does not match any of the patterns above, it may still be valid — try it anyway.
Coverage and typical delivery times
UK domestic mail and international tracked services, with last-mile delivery across the United Kingdom.
Practical tips
Keep the “GB” suffix. Royal Mail hands many international parcels to Parcelforce or a local partner, and tracking continues under the same number.
How to track a Royal Mail parcel
- Copy the tracking number from your order page, shipping email or receipt.
- Paste it into the 17Tracking search box — no need to select the carrier.
- If the first data source returns nothing, switch to the other one above the results. For Royal Mail we usually recommend 17TRACK.
- Read the timeline from the newest event down, and check the status guide for anything unfamiliar.
No result yet?
Royal Mail shipments commonly take 24–72 hours to show their first scan after the label is created. Check for typos, extra spaces and dropped characters. If the number still returns nothing after three days, ask the seller to confirm that the parcel has actually been dispatched.
Browse all providers in the carrier directory, or email [email protected] if you need a hand.