Royal Mail has temporarily suspended all mail services to Europe, apart from the Republic of Ireland, due to a UK travel ban triggered by the discovery of a new faster spreading mutant coronavirus strain.
The stoppage, just days before Christmas, comes amid new travel restrictions and chaos at ports due to fears about the new strain.
Royal Mail also said it is adding Canada and Turkey to its "on suspension" list due to delays caused by "severely limited" air capacity.
Royal Mail also said it could not guarantee special delivery items posted on 23 December would arrive before Christmas due to tighter covid restrictions being introduced in England.
On their website, the company said:
"This is a fast-moving situation and we are monitoring things on an hourly basis."
"We are working to keep as many international mail services running as possible given the current restrictions around air, road, ferry and train movements from the UK.
Meanwhile, Germany's DHL said it was temporarily suspending deliveries of packages to the UK.
The new variant of Covid-19 has ripped across the South East sending infections spiralling as it can spread 70% quicker than other strains.
A sudden surge in cases over the last week has prompted several European countries to ban arrivals from the UK with France also temporarily stopping all accompanied freight between the two countries, causing gridlock in Dover.
