Domestic or International: Shipping to Puerto Rico and other US Territories

by James Messer

September 20, 2018

If you’ve ever shipped to a US territory, you know how difficult the process can be. You think, why is it so much harder to ship to a territory? It can’t be because they’re islands. After all, shipping to Hawaii is treated the same as shipping to any other state. Furthermore, Puerto Rico, is much closer to the mainland than Hawaii.

Some carriers, such as FedEx and UPS, even require you to use the territory’s name in place of the country name. Furthermore, carriers may even require you to fill out customs forms (Commercial Invoice). Despite this caveat, these shipments are still treated as domestic shipments. Even though these shipments may never go through customs, they frequently in this weird grey area where they still need to have the same documentation as an international shipment. So let’s go over what’s needed when shipping to a territory.

US Territories: What’s Needed

USPS	State	Country	Additional Notes
Puerto Rico	PR	United States	Choose a domestic service No customs required with USPS to Caribbean territories
US Virgin Islands	VI	United States
American Samoa	AS	United States	Choose a domestic service Customs required with USPS to Pacific territories
Guam	GU	United States
Northern Mariana Islands	MP	United States

FedEx/UPS	State	Country	Additional Notes
Puerto Rico	PR	Puerto Rico	Choose an international service Customs Required with UPS and FedEx to all territories
US Virgin Islands	VI	US Virgin Islands
American Samoa	AS	American Samoa
Guam	GU	Guam
Northern Mariana Islands	MP	Northern Mariana Islands

Additional Information

Shipments to the Federated States of Micronesia need to to use the state code FM.
Shipments going to The Marshall Islands need to use the state code MH.
Shipping to another territory? Use the state code UM if shipping to one of the following U.S. Minor Outlying Islands:
- Baker Island
- Howland Island
- Jarvis Island
- Johnston Atoll
- Kingman Reef
- Midway Islands
- Palmyra Atoll
- Navassa Island
- Wake Island
For more information on shipping to a US territory with more carriers, check out this knowledge base article.
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