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One of the first ways Brexit will affect Irish consumers on New Years Day will be the addition of significant volumes of paperwork and form filling, as well as higher charges, when sending and receiving packages to and from Britain.
But Brexit will have no impact on letters to and from Britain, or goods and packages to or from Northern Ireland.
During the nearly five decades the UK was a member of the EU, the movement of postal parcels between the two jurisdictions was fluid, with few, if any, customs barriers.
Things will change from Friday and anyone wanting to send a package to Britain will need to fill out customs forms, An Post has confirmed.
Hundreds of thousands of packages entering the Republic will also require the additional filling of forms with applied fees before deliveries can be completed, despite the Withdrawal Agreement reached on Christmas Eve.
One Post said the form-filling exercises will apply to goods traveling to and from Britain with electronic customs data required for each item prior to publication.
While the steps may be new to consumers, An Post is already familiar with the necessary processes, handling over 10 million packages a year from non-EU countries, all of which must be available for officials to Irish customs inspect them.
The 16 million packages An Post receives annually from Great Britain will join the flow of packages presented to Customs.
However, courier companies are unlikely to charge directly to a significant percentage of home deliveries, as 95 per cent of UK retailers for whom An Post delivers is expected to add any charges for VAT or customs on online payment.
That means Irish consumers will not have to fill out customs forms to receive their purchases online. The remaining 5 percent, amounting to 800,000 packages, will require consumers to pay additional charges before delivery.
Packages will not be delivered by An Post, or any of the major shipping companies, until payments are received.
Irish residents or businesses shipping packages to the UK will need to fill out customs declaration forms online.
Customs charges will not be applied if the item is a gift with a value less than € 45.
An An Post spokesperson said items purchased from British sellers before January 1 but not delivered before the end of the transition period will likely be marked as exempt from new charges.
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