This status means the courier knows about your package but hasn't physically touched it yet — the shop printed the label and booked the collection, and the first real scan is still to come. A day or two of this is completely normal; small shops often print labels in the evening and hand packages over in batches, and international sellers can take longer between label and first scan. It becomes worth acting on after about three or four days of no movement: at that point, the package may genuinely not have been handed over, and only the seller can check that. Message them and ask when the courier actually collected it — "label created, never shipped" is a seller-side problem with a seller-side fix. Once the first scan lands, your timeline here comes alive and stays that way.

That fee is the price of the customs paperwork being done for you. When a package from outside the UK arrives owing import VAT or duty, the carrier fronts the assessment work and collects the taxes — and charges for the service: £8 on Royal Mail deliveries, £12 on Parcelforce, and £25 for high-value items over £900 needing a full customs declaration. The fee only appears when there's actually something to collect, which is the useful loophole: shops that handle UK VAT at checkout (most big platforms do, for orders up to £135) send packages that clear with nothing owed — no tax bill at the door, no handling fee. So the same £30 order arrives free from one shop and with £8-plus-VAT attached from another. Check the checkout before you buy; the VAT line is the tell.

It means your package is between scanning points — and some gaps between scans are simply long. On international routes, the stretch between leaving the origin country and arriving in the UK can run a week or more with zero updates, because nobody scans packages mid-flight or mid-Channel. Within the UK, a static location usually means the package is queued at a sorting hub rather than lost; peak season makes those queues visibly slower. The status is unhelpfully vague, but the pattern is reliable: silence, then a burst of scans once the package hits the next facility. We keep checking automatically, so there's nothing to refresh. If the freeze runs well past the seller's delivery estimate, that's your cue — ask the seller to raise an enquiry with the carrier, which works better from their side than yours.

Royal Mail makes this a two-minute job. You'll receive a grey "Fee to Pay" card (or a digital notification) when a package arrives owing charges — go to royalmail.com's Pay a fee page, enter the reference from the card, and pay by card or PayPal; delivery then resumes. Parcelforce works the same way through the customs-charge page on parcelforce.com, and both also accept payment at a Post Office if you prefer a counter. Two warnings born of experience: don't dawdle, because held packages have a return clock ticking; and be paranoid about texts and emails demanding small customs fees via odd links — the real fee has a real card or letter behind it, and the real payment page lives on the carrier's own domain, reached by typing the address yourself. When unsure, check the tracking here first: a genuine fee shows as a held-for-payment status.

Your package changed hands at the border, and the new team issued its own paperwork. International sellers ship with a cross-border carrier or a platform network; once the package clears UK customs, Royal Mail, Evri or another domestic courier takes over the final leg under a fresh number. The original number often goes quiet at that exact moment — which looks like a dead end and is actually a relay handover. Both numbers work here: paste in either and we follow the whole journey, and if the seller or the courier's app surfaces the new UK number, add it and we'll keep the two linked. Practical tip: the UK number is the one Royal Mail's redelivery tools and Evri's app recognise, so it's the one to use for rearranging a delivery.

The full doorstep rotation. Royal Mail and Parcelforce for the classics, Evri and Yodel carrying a huge share of online orders, DPD and DHL Parcel UK for the premium slots, InPost for locker deliveries, plus Amazon Logistics and the international names — FedEx, UPS — flying orders in. Your ASOS order by Evri, your Amazon package, your Vinted find via InPost locker and an AliExpress package clearing Heathrow all live in one timeline here. In total we track more than 1,000 carriers worldwide, recognising each number format automatically, so the carrier lottery at checkout stops mattering. And when an international package switches to a UK courier at the border, we follow it through the handover, new tracking number and all.

Both are ways to collect on your own schedule instead of gambling on being home. InPost lockers are 24/7 machines outside supermarkets and stations: when your package lands, you get a QR code or PIN by email and app — scan or type at the locker, the door opens, done, even at midnight. Evri ParcelShops are counters inside local shops: bring the code from your notification (plus ID for some packages) and collect during shop hours; many double as drop-off points for returns. Shops increasingly offer both at checkout, usually cheaper than home delivery. The single rule both share: collection windows are short — typically a few days, with lockers strictest — and uncollected packages get rerouted or returned. The code message tells you your deadline; treat it as firm.

You'll find a red "Something for you" card (or an app notification) telling you where your package went — usually your local Customer Service Point or Post Office — and from there you've got easy options. Collect in person with the card and photo ID, send someone else with the card plus their ID and a note from you, or rearrange: royalmail.com lets you book a free redelivery to your address on a day you choose, or to a different local address or Post Office. Redelivery is often the laziest good option — book it for Saturday and stay in bed. The deadline to respect: Royal Mail holds items for a couple of weeks or so before returning them to the sender, and the card states your exact date. Your timeline here shows the attempted-delivery scan, so you'll know to look for the card even if it blew off the doormat.

That arrival scan usually marks the start of the quietest phase: your package is at the international gateway — most postal packages funnel through Royal Mail's hub at Langley — queueing for customs checks and re-entry into the domestic network, and those steps barely produce public scans. A few days of silence is standard; peak season and packages needing a VAT assessment take longer. Two checks worth making while you wait: look for a Fee to Pay notification (an unpaid customs charge silently parks packages at exactly this stage), and see whether your seller used a service that hands over to Evri or Yodel — the action may have moved to a new UK tracking number you haven't been sent yet. Ask the seller for it, add it here, and the story usually resumes. Past two weeks of nothing, have the seller raise a formal enquiry.

Work the checklist before assuming the worst — it resolves most cases by evening. Read the delivery detail on the scan: UK couriers photograph deliveries, and the photo in the carrier's app usually shows exactly which doorstep, porch or "safe place" was used — sometimes a neighbour's. Check behind bins, in the porch, with the household, and knock next door; "left with neighbour" is routine and not always well-labelled. Evri and Yodel scans sometimes land minutes early, so give it a few hours. Still missing next day? Report it to the carrier with your tracking number, then tell the seller — under UK consumer rules the seller is responsible for getting the order to you, so they're the ones who must refund, replace or claim. Your timeline here gives the exact scan time and wording to quote.

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

• Your France orders, all in one place

• Waiting on something from Germany?

• Keep an eye on Netherlands deliveries

• Tracking made easy for Belgium

• See deliveries to and from Austria

• Where's your Switzerland parcel?

These carrier pages are worth a look too:

• Royal Mail tracking, step by step

• See where your Evri package is

• Got a DPD number? Start here

• Check your Panther UK shipment

• APC Overnight updates in one place

• Waiting on Yodel International? Track it here