New USPS Postmark Rules Could Delay Your Mail and Affect Important Deadlines
Despite being a consistent presence in our daily lives, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is no stranger to change. Whether it’s another round of price increases or upending its behind-the-scenes operations, the organization keeps us on our toes. But an upcoming set of changes could have serious consequences for people who rely on email for critical functions. And thanks to a new set of USPS postmark rules, your mail could now be delayed further, affecting important deadlines for voting, taxes, and more.
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There’s been public concern over recent USPS policy changes.
We’ve all used the mail to send important, time-sensitive documents at one point. Typically, the system has always worked so that as long as you handed over everything to the USPS in time, the postmark stamped on your envelope could serve as proof that you met the deadline. But now, the agency has made a significant update to some of its rules on how it handles outgoing mail that could upend that.
As of Christmas Eve, the USPS has redefined what a postmark signifies, clarifying that the date stamped on the envelope signifies when that particular piece of mail gets processed, per PBS News. This changes the previous procedure, where the agency would postmark them the day they were received.
The new rules could affect important items like mail-in ballots and taxes.
While it might seem innocuous when sending personal letters or non-time-sensitive documents, some fear that an important piece of mail could sit unprocessed for days in a facility, creating serious issues. Namely, this could have a major effect on things like mail-in ballots and taxes.
Since 1954, anyone sending in their tax forms to the IRS via mail could use the postmark on their envelope as their date of filing, Forbes reports. However, if a taxpayer were to hand in their documents on the deadline, a delay in processing their items could lead to fines and penalties.
In the case of voting by mail, some states require that all ballots be postmarked by Election Day to be valid. However, now that days may pass before a piece of mail reaches a processing facility, there’s a good chance many votes could be disqualified under new regulations.
The changes come at a time when voting by mail has become more commonplace. Federal data shows that 30 percent of all ballots collected in the 2024 election were sent in by mail, CNN reports.
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The USPS denies that the new policy will have any effect.
As some voting-by-mail advocates worry this could erode significant recent changes in the democratic process, the USPS itself is downplaying the move, saying that it “does not change any existing postal operations or postmarking practices, but is instead intended to improve public understanding of postmarks and their relationship to the date of mailing,” per PBS News.
In a post on Jan. 2, the USPS released a statement in an effort to clarify the changes. While claiming that postmarking practices have been “consistent since we began moving away from hand-canceling every item at Post Offices decades ago,” the agency didn’t appear to dispel the concerns being voiced by the public of a lag time between receipt and processing.
“While we are not changing our postmarking practices, we have made adjustments to our transportation operations that will result in some mailpieces not arriving at our originating processing facilities on the same day that they are mailed,” the memo explains. “This means that the date on the postmarks applied at our processing facilities will not necessarily match the date on which the customer’s mailpiece was collected by a letter carrier or dropped off at a retail location.”
In the memo, the USPS does remind customers that they can request a manual local postmark at their closest retail location. They can also purchase a certificate of mailing or use registered and certified mail.