How to fill out a postcard?

Maybe dumb question, but I’m nowhere near used to the postal service here and I’m scared of doing things wrong.

I want to send a postcard internationally and I don’t really know how to fill it out. Is only the receiver’s address necessary? Do I have to add the boxes for their postal code (if the postcard doesn’t include them already)? What if their country’s postal code is shorter than Japan’s (5 digits, opposed to Japan’s 7)?

I’d also like to add a small message to the postcard.

Thank you all!

3 comments
  1. The last time I sent postcards internationally, I covered the Japanese address section with a blank white address label and just hand-wrote the addresses like:

    Name

    Street address

    City

    State/province/prefecture/whatever

    Post code

    ***COUNTRY***

    I wrote the country in larger, all-caps letters to make it clear it was international. They all reached their destination just fine, but some recipients said their postcard arrived with a bunch of bar code labels from one of more countries’ post office covering the message, so keep that in mind if you plan to write a long message.

  2. You’re sending it internationally. Literally the only part of the address that Japan Post cares about being to understand is the country and maybe the postal code. Anything else is the responsibility of the destination country’s postal service.

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