How a parcel gets priced in China

Pricing a parcel in China comes down to four inputs: the first kilogram, each kilogram after it, the room the box takes up, and what you declare the contents to be worth. Add a speed tier and you have five, and four of the five are set by the carrier.

One number in that system is published for the whole market. Every figure below carries the date I read it.

The average parcel, from the top down

The State Post Bureau publishes revenue and volume monthly and annually. Divide one by the other.

For the 2025 rows, volume comes from the annual bulletin (2025 bulletin, 2026-05-22) and the exact revenue figures from the full-year release, which the bulletin itself rounds to 1.5 trillion yuan (2025 running report, 2026-01-22). The 2026 rows come from the January–August release (State Post Bureau, 2026-09-18). The divisions are mine.

That average covers everything billed as express nationally — wholesale contracts, returns, cross-border — so it is an average of invoices, not a counter quote; my reading is that it sits below a single-box counter price and above what a bulk seller pays per item. The bulletin prints the same ratio twice: annual express spending per person ¥1,063.4 against 141.6 parcels per person (bulletin, 2026-05-22), which also comes to ¥7.51.

The direction changed inside a year. In 2025 volume grew 13.6 percent and revenue 6.5 percent, so the average fell. In the first eight months of 2026 volume grew 4.6 percent and revenue 7.4 percent, so it rose. In 2025 the mix was 7.9 percent same-city, 90.0 percent inter-city and 2.1 percent international (bulletin, 2026-05-22); by the first eight months of 2026 same-city volume was down 7.8 percent and its share had slipped to 7.3 percent (State Post Bureau, 2026-09-18).

The same statistic, province by province

The full-year release prints revenue and volume for each province-level division. Divide again and the national ¥7.51 dissolves.

2025 data, divided by me from the province table in the 2025 running report (2026-01-22), read 2026-10-12. The two unnamed divisions sit in the same official table; they are units of account, not places this piece is about.

Both columns include wholesale contracts, warehousing and cross-docking, so this is an average of invoices, not a rate card. Zhejiang’s ¥4.48 reflects a province full of sellers shipping in bulk. What survives is the spread: over tenfold between the cheapest and dearest division on one national rate structure.

First kilo, added kilo

Commercial rate cards quote a first weight plus a rate per added unit, priced by origin–destination pair — industry-common figure, unverified: I did not read rate cards for this piece, and no official document states that structure.

The public version of that ladder is the ordinary-parcel tariff, still government-guided: in 2017 the price authorities and the postal regulator replaced fixed pricing with a ceiling structure — 31 charging zones, six tariff levels, first and added weights both counted in one-kilogram units, no separate registration fee (NDRC, Ministry of Finance and State Post Bureau, 2017-04-17, effective 2017-04-20). The ceilings (attachment 1):

The 3 kg and 10 kg columns are my arithmetic on the published ceilings. These are ceilings, not prices: the operator may charge less, and the file tells it to hold increases down where the restructure raised them. They cover a small slice of the market — postal universal-service revenue in 2025 was ¥10.58bn against ¥1,493.93bn of express revenue, about 0.7 percent (2025 running report, 2026-01-22). Two conditions in the same file matter next: parcels of at most 10 kg, and only those weighing at least 167 grams per cubic decimetre.

Volumetric weight

That density figure is the key to the second weight. Rate cards sell space as well as mass, so a large light box is converted into a notional weight and you are charged on whichever is greater. The arithmetic is length × width × height divided by a divisor. No government body I could find publishes that divisor: 6,000 cubic centimetres per kilogram for standard domestic products, 8,000 or 12,000 in some lighter cross-border and air-based services — industry-common figure, unverified.

The indirect anchor is the density floor above: 167 grams per cubic decimetre is one kilogram per 5.99 cubic decimetres, or about 6,000 cubic centimetres per kilogram — my division, and no official document ties the two figures together. A 40 × 30 × 20 cm carton is 24 litres, or 4.0 kg at a 6,000 divisor; if it weighs 1.5 kg, you pay for 4 kg.

The 2023 national standard for the service step requires the carrier to determine the chargeable weight correctly and record it in kilograms with at least one decimal place (China National Institute of Standardization, interpreting GB/T 27917.3-2023, 2024-04-12); that edition took effect 2024-04-01 (standards catalogue, page dated 2024-07-02, listing standards due in 2027).

Declared value, and what it buys

Declared value is the add-on that moves a price most, and it has the clearest rules. Before you fill in the waybill the carrier must remind you to read the contract and tell you the declared-value rules and insurance options; if you send something valuable you must declare it, and the carrier may require declared value on it (Regulation on Express Delivery, as amended by State Council Order No. 806, article 22, decision dated 2025-04-13, effective 2025-06-01).

If the parcel is delayed, lost, damaged or short of contents, compensation for a declared-value parcel follows the rules the carrier and sender agreed; for an undeclared parcel it follows civil law (article 28). The market rules repeat the disclosure duty and add two hooks: the fee charged must be retrievable from the waybill number or the carrier’s system, and tariff standards, service areas and time limits must be published (Express Market Measures, Ministry of Transport Order No. 22 of 2023, articles 22 and 25, effective 2024-03-01). Carriers are encouraged to publish tariffs down to county level with a stated weight error margin, and fabricating a service fee draws up to ¥10,000, or ¥10,000–30,000 in serious cases (article 53).

A group standard for declared-value services was released on 2026-06-16 by the industry association, covering service principles, fee standards, compensation scope and claim requirements (China Transport News, published by a body under the Ministry of Transport, 2026-06-17). I did not read the standard, so I print no rate from it.

Two survey items are worth more here than a rate card. In the 2025 satisfaction survey, loss compensation scored 80.5, up 3.2 points year on year and the lowest third-level item that release names, while transparent fees scored 89.2, unchanged (State Post Bureau, 2026-04-08). In the first quarter of 2026 the bureau measured a “fees clear and accurate” item at 85.7, up 1.8 (State Post Bureau, dated 2026-05-29, published 2026-06-01).

Speed tiers, and the shape of the clock

The standard fixes two outer limits: same-city delivery within 24 hours, and delivery within a province but outside the same city, or between provinces, within 72 hours. The 2023 revision splits same-city into an urban tier and a rest-of-city tier (CNIS interpretation, 2024-04-12). Commercial same-day and next-day products run inside those limits.

Bureau annual and quarterly notices (2025, dated 2026-04-07; 2026 Q1, dated 2026-05-29; 2026 Q2, dated 2026-07-15, published 2026-07-16), read 2026-10-12. The 2025 bulletin prints the same full-year figures independently (bulletin, 2026-05-22).

The stage breakdown shows why next-day promises are fragile. In 2026’s second quarter the clock ran 8.46 hours of origin handling, 30.12 hours of line haul, 9.70 hours of destination handling and 3.05 hours of final delivery (2026 Q2 notice, 2026-07-15). Line haul is 59 percent of the total and is what a speed tier really buys.

Where two prices for one parcel come from

Distance band, weight against volume, speed tier, declared value, and whether the destination is covered at all. The regulator also tracks improper charging as its own complaint category: in the last complaint report I could find on the bureau’s site, improper charging accounted for 1,168 of 68,956 complaints about express service — 1.69 percent of complaints and 0.32 percent of those a carrier was responsible for (2023 Q4 complaint notice, published 2024-02-07). That report put the whole postal system’s complaint rate at 1.51 per million items and the substantiated rate at 0.24 per million.

The rule behind that category is the general one on price marking: label prices accurately, match the label to the goods, keep the marking conspicuous, with prefecture-level-and-above regulators able to exempt specific trades (State Administration for Market Regulation Order No. 56, in force since 2022-07-01; the text I read is a municipal regulator’s republication, link, 2023-02-14). Compliance at counters I cannot measure, and will not guess.

How these numbers were made

Revenue ÷ volume is my arithmetic on the bureau’s published aggregates, in the sources’ own units. Where a bulletin rounds, I used the exact figure from the same release’s table. Province averages divide that table column by column; the 3 kg and 10 kg columns and the litre-to-kilogram conversion are my arithmetic. Cross-checks are inline: the two per-person ratios in the 2025 bulletin, and the full-year figures appearing in both the bulletin and the quarterly notices. Each figure carries its read date, 2026-10-12.

What I could not check

• Volumetric-weight divisors. No official source states them. 6,000, 8,000 and 12,000 cubic centimetres per kilogram are industry-common figure, unverified, and the division behind the 6,000 anchor is mine.
• The commercial rate-card structure. First weight plus added weight, priced by origin–destination pair, is industry-common figure, unverified; I did not read rate cards.
• Counter prices, and speed-tier surcharges. No first-party figure appears above: I found no published series for what a walk-in customer pays, or for the premium a same-day product carries.
• The declared-value group standard’s contents. Its release was reported by an industry paper under the transport ministry; I did not read the text and printed no rate from it.
• Whether the 2017 ordinary-parcel tariff is still unamended. It is the newest such notice in the regulator’s document channel and shows no replacement, but I did not check a national pricing database.
• Complaint notices after 2023 Q4. That instalment is the newest national one I could locate; provincial regulators publish their own, on other schedules.
• Price-marking compliance at counters. The rule exists; how often it is followed is unmeasured by me.
• The ¥48.75 row. The division is straightforward; what that division’s booked revenue consists of is not public.