Right here — add each tracking number and your whole delivery life lines up in one view: the Mighty Ape order out for delivery, the ASOS package crossing the Tasman, the AliExpress find still with biosecurity. We recognise each number's format automatically, so there's no working out whether it's NZ Post or Aramex before you can look, and underneath it, the complete timeline of scans is there whenever you want it. 100% free with no account needed. The properly effortless version: sign in with Google and connect your Gmail, and we'll spot the confirmation emails from your Amazon, Temu or The Warehouse orders and start tracking them automatically — new purchases appear in your list before you've gone hunting for the number. One glance with your flat white sorts the day.

All of them, and the rest of the crew too. NZ Post and its CourierPost service carry the bulk of the country's online orders; Aramex (the old Fastway) and NZ Couriers move a big share of the rest; add Post Haste, Castle Parcels and the freight specialists, plus the international names flying orders in — DHL, FedEx, UPS. Your Trade Me purchase, your Shein haul clearing Auckland and a document to Dunedin all sit in one timeline here. We track more than 1,100 carriers worldwide and help you know who is delivering your package. And when an international order hands over to a local carrier after customs — the standard pattern — we follow it straight through the switch, new number included.

An RD number in your address means you're on a rural delivery run — one contractor covering a long countryside route rather than a dense urban round — and the maths of distance does the rest. Rural runs happen once a day at most, some routes fewer days a week, and your package first travels to the nearest town's depot before joining the run, so add one to three working days over urban delivery for the same courier. Some couriers also apply a rural surcharge, which the shop may pass on at checkout. None of this shows as scans: expect the tracking to sit at the regional depot, then jump straight to delivered. Two tips that help: include your full RD address exactly as NZ Post formats it, and consider a Box Lobby or town pickup point for anything urgent — collecting in town can beat waiting for the run.

For most orders, the tax is already in your checkout total. Overseas shops and marketplaces collect New Zealand's 15% GST when you pay on orders worth NZ$1,000 or less — that's why Amazon and AliExpress add it at the till — and those packages cross the border without a bill chasing them. Above NZ$1,000, the border takes over: duty (category-dependent) plus GST and processing fees get assessed on arrival, and the courier usually collects before delivery. One new line to know about: from 1 April 2026, low-value import shipments also carry a small government levy — a couple of dollars plus GST per shipment — which shops and carriers are working into their pricing. So under the threshold, expect the checkout price to be the real price; over it, budget for the border's cut before you click buy.

Because New Zealand takes protecting its islands seriously — MPI screens incoming mail with some of the world's strictest biosecurity rules, and anything organic earns a closer look: food, honey products especially, seeds, plants, wooden items, and used outdoor gear that might carry soil. An inspection hold means your package matched a risk profile or got randomly selected, and the queue adds days — occasionally a couple of weeks in busy periods. Most packages pass and continue normally. If an item fails, it can be treated, re-exported or destroyed, with a letter explaining the outcome; refunds then run through your seller. Nothing is usually needed from you during the hold. Before your next order of snacks, supplements or anything growable, two minutes on MPI's website tells you whether it's allowed — the inspection you avoid is the fastest one there is.

Three lanes, three clocks. Australia is the fast lane: express services land in two to four working days, economy in about a week — the Tasman is short, and volumes are huge. From the US, expect roughly one to two weeks on standard services, quicker on express, with customs and biosecurity screening adding a day or two on arrival. China runs two to four weeks on standard e-commerce shipping — the flight is brief but consolidation before departure and the Auckland processing queue do the waiting — while premium options compress it to about a week. Every lane slows before Christmas and after the big global sales. Read your timeline by rhythm rather than by date: the quiet stretch between leaving the origin and the first Auckland scan is normal on every route, and rural addresses add their day or two at the end.

They're the two endings a delivery can have, and you often get to choose. Signature required means the driver needs a human: someone must be there to sign, and if nobody is, you get a card and the package heads to a depot or post shop for pickup or redelivery. Authority to leave (ATL) flips it: you've given permission for the package to be left safe at your address — porch, meter box, your nominated spot — no signature, no missed-delivery lottery, usually with a photo confirming where it landed. Shops set the default, but you can often override it: NZ Post and the couriers let you add ATL instructions through their sites or apps, and checkout notes work too. The honest trade-off: ATL means convenience with doorstep exposure, signatures mean security with scheduling. Match it to the item — ATL for the t-shirt, signature for the laptop.

Usually by a day or so, and geography is the whole story. Most international packages enter through Auckland, and the bulk of NZ's warehousing sits in the upper North Island — so an Auckland address might get next-day delivery while the same package to Christchurch adds a day for the journey south, and Otago or Southland can add another. The Cook Strait crossing puts freight on ferries or planes, both of which run on schedules and weather. Within the South Island, Christchurch is the hub: main-centre deliveries move quickly once the package is across, while rural RD addresses add their usual margin. Watch the pattern in your timeline: a "departed Auckland" scan followed by a quiet day is the crossing, not a problem. For anything time-critical heading south, the express tier earns its price more than it does in Auckland.

Often, yes — NZ's carriers are reasonably flexible once the package is in the country. NZ Post lets you manage deliveries through its app and site: add authority-to-leave instructions with a preferred safe spot, redirect eligible packages to another address or a Box Lobby, or arrange pickup after a missed attempt. CourierPost and Aramex offer similar steering through the links in their tracking messages — safe-place notes, neighbour options, depot pickup. The usual limits apply: the sender's settings decide what's possible, signature-required items won't convert to a doorstep drop, and international packages become steerable only after clearing customs and biosecurity. So track it closely here — once that first Irish domestic scan lands, you'll see which carrier's driving it, and that's the app worth opening before the van goes out. A standing ATL instruction, set once, quietly ends most missed deliveries for good.

Pretty normal, and mostly a function of route length. That scan fires when your package is loaded onto the delivery run in the morning; where you sit on the run decides whether the knock comes at 9am or 4:30pm, and rural or outer-suburb routes stretch all day by design. So a full day of "with driver" usually just means you're late in the sequence. It only turns into a question if the day ends without a delivery — which happens when routes overrun or weather intervenes; the package then goes back to the depot and rides out again the next working day, typically early in the queue. Two "with driver" days in a row with no doorbell is your cue to contact the courier with the tracking number. Meanwhile, keep the phone handy and the dog briefed — drivers move fast when the run is long.

You may also want to explore tracking for these other destinations:

• Tracking made easy for Australia

• See deliveries to and from China

• Where's your United States parcel?

• Follow your shipment in Great Britain

• Got a parcel from Germany? Track it here

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• Waiting on DHL Express? Track it here

• Track your FedEx parcels

• Following a UPS delivery?

• AliExpress Standard Shipping tracking, step by step

• See where your China Post package is

• Got a Yun Express number? Start here