International Shipping, 2022

Last updated 13th April 2022.

It's a very uncertain time for a lot of people across the world right now, so we wanted to reassure our customers that Living DNA is still operating as normal.

Unfortunately however, some of our international customers are reporting long shipping delays both in receiving their kits and in sending their samples back to us.

With the ongoing pandemic, a lot of postal and customs services are reacting to infection rates, new regulations, and lockdowns as they occur, which may result in a delay to your kit arriving with you.

The ongoing war in Ukraine is also having an impact internationally, as the airspaces over Russia, Ukraine, and Moldova are all closed. This means that if the normal postal route for your kit or your sample would take it over or near one of these countries, alternative routes must be sought by the postal services.

For some countries (such as Japan), this is causing a delay of 3 months or more as post is re-routed indirectly over land and sea. It's important to note that while our swabs are designed to preserve your DNA, the preservation before your sample reaches us lasts - on average - between 3 and 6 months. This means that if there is a delay of this length there is a higher chance of your sample failing during the testing process.

We strongly recommend consulting with your local postal service before purchasing a kit, as we cannot guarantee the shipping times on our website due to these issues. As we are based in the UK, we use the Royal Mail website to stay up to date on current shipping estimates, and if you're outside of the UK the postal service for your own country should be able to provide similar information.

We are truly sorry for any delays you might experience, and we will continue to work to alleviate these where we can.

We will update this article with any new shipping details as we receive them.

Please note that our North American customers will not be affected by international delays as kits are shipped from and then tested within the USA.