Ireland applies the EU import rules in full, and they show up in your tracking as the customs pause — whoever's carrying your package. Every purchase from outside the EU owes Irish VAT — 23% — from the first cent, and since 1 July 2026 low-value e-commerce packages also carry the EU's flat €3 duty per item, which replaced the old €150 duty-free allowance. When the shop collected VAT at checkout through IOSS (the big platforms do), your package clears with barely a blip, whether An Post, DPD or DHL brings it to your door. When it didn't, the timeline pauses while Revenue assesses the charges, and the payment request comes from whichever carrier is handling the clearance — An Post by postcard, SMS or email, the express couriers like DHL, UPS and FedEx through their own emails and payment links — each adding its own handling fee. Pay promptly and delivery resumes within days. The practical rule: a VAT line at checkout means a smooth timeline; no VAT line means budget for the bill and the wait.

The Eircode solved a very Irish problem: tens of thousands of homes share a townland name with their neighbours, and "the blue house past the church" was never a great routing instruction. Your seven-character Eircode identifies your exact property — not your street, your building — so couriers' navigation takes drivers to the right door instead of the right general area, whether that driver works for An Post, DPD, Fastway or Amazon. Always include it at checkout, especially with international shops whose address forms weren't built for rural Ireland; if a form has no Eircode field, add it to the address line itself. It matters most for non-Dublin addresses and for couriers whose drivers don't know the area. Forgotten yours? Finder.eircode.ie looks it up in seconds. An order with an Eircode simply fails less — fewer "address not found" scans, fewer packages waiting at depots for clarification.

Everyone delivering to Irish doorsteps. An Post carries the postal backbone and a huge share of online orders, Fastway (now part of the DPD family) and DPD Ireland move much of the e-commerce flow, GLS covers many European webshops, and the international names — DHL, UPS, FedEx — fly the express and cross-border orders in. Your Amazon order crossing from the UK, your Zara delivery and an AliExpress package clearing customs in Dublin all sit in one timeline here. We track more than 1,000 carriers worldwide and recognise each number's format automatically, so it never matters which courier the shop happened to pick. And when a package coming from abroad gets handed on An Post or a local courier for the final leg — the standard pattern — we follow it straight through the handover.

The notice tells you exactly where your package went, and each carrier has its own fallback — usually close by. An Post deliveries wait at your local post office: bring the docket (or the digital notice) and photo ID, and collection takes a minute. DPD and Fastway typically reroute to a nearby pickup shop or depot, named in the tracking and their apps, with redelivery options if the counter trip doesn't suit. GLS sends packages to its parcel shops, DHL to a service point, and UPS holds at an Access Point — in every case the tracking names the exact spot. Amazon's own drivers usually just retry the next day. The deadline is the thing to respect across all of them: pickup locations hold packages for a limited window before starting the return to sender, and the date on your notice is the one that counts. Your timeline here shows the attempted-delivery scan, so you'll know to look for the docket even if it went missing.

Often, yes — and each carrier gives you its own controls. An Post lets you set delivery preferences through your An Post account and app: nominate a neighbour, choose a safe place, or redirect an incoming package to a post office — and eligible packages can be steered while they're already on the way. DPD Ireland's app offers safe-place instructions, neighbour delivery and pickup-shop diversion once the package is in its network, and Fastway rides the same DPD infrastructure. GLS and DHL offer similar changes through the links in their delivery emails, and UPS through its My Choice service. The honest caveats everywhere: what you can change depends on what the sender allowed, signature-required items usually can't go to a safe place, and international packages become steerable only after they've cleared customs and entered the domestic network. The first Irish domestic scan on your timeline here tells you exactly which carrier has the package — open that app before delivery day, not after.

Run the Irish checklist before worrying — it solves most cases by teatime. Read the delivery detail on the scan: it often names a neighbour, a safe place or a porch, and DPD, Fastway and Amazon usually attach a photo of exactly where the package landed — An Post's app increasingly does the same. Check with the household, the neighbours on either side, and any sheltered spot a driver might trust — behind the pillar, in the turf shed, the usual suspects. Scans sometimes land a few minutes before the van does, so give it until evening. Still nothing next day? Report it to the carrier with your tracking number so they can pull the delivery data — GPS coordinates of the scan included — then tell the seller: under EU consumer rules the seller is responsible for the order reaching you, so they're the ones who refund, replace or claim. Your timeline here gives the exact scan time to quote in both conversations.

Every customs notification carries a "pay by" date, and that date decides everything — though how it reaches you depends on the carrier. An Post sends a postcard plus SMS and email with a customs reference you pay online or at any post office; DHL, UPS and FedEx email a payment link and typically hold packages at their Dublin facilities while they wait. Pay before the deadline and delivery resumes within days. Miss it and the package starts its journey back to the sender — the expensive outcome, because international returns take weeks and your refund then depends on the shop rather than on you holding the goods. Hold windows differ by carrier, so the date on your own notice is the only one that counts. Two cautions from experience: check your spam folder when your tracking shows a customs hold, because the emails go astray; and pay only through the carrier's own site, typed into your browser yourself — fake customs-fee texts are Ireland's favourite phishing flavour.

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

• Where's your France parcel?

• Follow your shipment in Germany

• Got a parcel from Netherlands? Track it here

• Track parcels going to or from Belgium

• Check on your Austria delivery

• Your Switzerland orders, all in one place

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• Waiting on Evri? Track it here

• Track your DPD parcels

• Following a Royal Mail delivery?

• DHL Express tracking, step by step

• See where your UPS package is

• Got a FedEx number? Start here