• Visit date: October 17 2024
• Post office visited: La Poste Mamoudzou main post office and a few others
• Cost of sending mail: France 1,29 EUR, The rest of the world 2,02 EUR
• Postcard availability: A decent selection in souvenir shops and kiosks
• Postcard delivery time: Fastest- 26 days to Germany.

Mayotte is one of the twelve overseas territories belonging to France. It is located in the Indian Ocean, near the coast of Africa, within the Comoros archipelago. The other three islands in this archipelago voted for independence, resulting in the formation of the Union of the Comoros in 1975. However, the residents of Mayotte voted to remain with France.

A brief history of Mayotte Post

Mayotte’s early postal history is similar to that of the other islands in the Comoros archipelago. It shared the postal system of Madagascar from 1911 to 1946 and later that of France. The first postage stamp inscribed “Archipel des Comores” was issued in 1950. In 1975, when the other islands of the archipelago decided to pursue independence, Mayotte, which remained connected to France, faced a shortage of postage stamps. To address this issue, the prefect of Mayotte, Younoussa Bamana, had 100 and 200 franc stamps from the Comoros (issued between 1969 and 1974) cut in half and into quarters in 1975 to create the necessary 50 CFA franc stamp, which was the typical postage cost for sending mail to France.

In 1976, French stamps arrived in Mayotte. French stamps remained valid in Mayotte until 1996, when the island gained postal and philatelic autonomy. Since 1997, Mayotte has issued its own stamps featuring local themes such as coats of arms, objects, customs, fauna, and flora. French stamps were still accepted, but they were overprinted with “MAYOTTE.”

From January 2012, Mayotte’s French stamps became valid and Mayotte’s stamps were no longer printed. From April of the same year, Mayotte stamps were no longer sold in local post offices. However, stamps previously issued by Mayotte are valid without time limits.

Sources: Wikipedia, philatelie/Mayotte_1975, Histoire et philatelie, La Poste FR

Our visit to Mayotte

Arriving from the Union of the Comoros to the Comoros archipelago, but the overseas territory of France, felt as if I had made a leap in time. The roads were asphalted and without potholes, and various postcards were already sold at the airport. Postcards were also sold in various souvenir shops, but not in post offices. Since many of my recipients may also like local postcards about cats, I’m sorry, but I couldn’t find any with this topic even in bookstores.

Mayotte airport is located on the island of Petite Terre, which also has its own post office, which we visited. There are many of them on the big island of Mayotte where we stayed. We went sightseeing and when we passed through a town and the post office was open, we stopped and mailed a few postcards. Post offices are open at different times and some were closed for lunch breaks. The main post office in Mamoudzous is open from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., on Saturdays until 12:00 p.m., and closed on Sundays. In addition to post offices, there were also post office agencies with only square day stamps (round in post offices).

We had supplied ourselves with Mayotte stamps purchased from the European philatelic secondary market, which were no longer sold in local post offices. Therefore, most of the postcards we sent received a beautiful Mayotte stamp or stamps, but a local cancellation with date. Post offices had a nice selection of French stamps for sale.

From Mayotte, the postcards move on to France and from there to their recipients around the world.

We dropped the last postcards before leaving Mayotte in the mailbox of the main post office. We have no doubt that this will also be dealt with according to the rules.

Update October 12: The last postcards we put in the mailbox just before going to the airport have been sent to France without the stamps being canceled in Mayotte.

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