Postmarks don’t mean what they used to.
For as long as most living people can remember, a postmark reflected the date you dropped something off at your local Post Office or, for those of us who live in rural areas, the day after you put it in your own mailbox. That is no longer true. A new policy will cause problems for people who wait until the last minute to send time-sensitive mail that relies on a postmark to confirm dates.
As of our most recent Christmas Eve, Dec. 24, 2025, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has officially started postmarking letters and packages on the date they arrive at a postal processing facility, rather than when they arrive at your local Post Office.
Tax returns dropped off on April 15 could come with penalties from the IRS, which relies on postmarks to confirm when you submit your forms.
According to the National Society of Tax Professionals, “The United States Postal Service (USPS) has adopted a final rule adding Section 608.11, ‘Postmarks and Postal Possession,’ to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). The rule formally defines postmarks and identifies the types of markings that qualify as such. Its primary purpose is to improve public understanding that while a postmark confirms the USPS possessed a mail piece on the date inscribed, that date does not necessarily align with the date the USPS first accepted possession of the item. The rule clarifies that the USPS does not postmark all mail in the ordinary course of operations and that the absence of a postmark does not imply the USPS did not accept custody.”
The rule clarifies that the date displayed on a machine-applied postmark represents the “date of the first automated processing operation” performed at a processing facility, rather than the date the mail was dropped off.
For over 70 years, countless companies, landlords, government agencies, and many parts of the legal system have used postmarks to confirm that you met deadlines. Either those systems will have to adapt to new rules, or, more likely, they will place an additional burden on the individual to prove compliance with policy or law.
Your options include the following:
- Mail things one or more days in advance of deadlines, effectively changing the deadline.
- Go to the retail counter at your local Post Office during hours of operations to ask for a manual postmark (a.k.a. “local postmark”) to ensure the date matches when your item was accepted.
- Get a Postage Validation Imprint (PVI) by paying for postage at a retail counter. The PVI label applied by the employee also indicates the date of acceptance.
- Send by registered or certified mail, at your own expense, so you can have mailing receipts and tracking.
Applying pre-printed labels from USPS Self-Service Kiosks, Click-N-Ship, or meters only show when postage was printed, not when the USPS accepted the item.
According to the Federal Register (tinyurl.com/FedRegPostmarks) “this new language in the DMM 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.”
Also according to the Federal Register, “as explained in the Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, the postmark is not, and never has been, a service, but has always performed functions (e.g., cancelling postage) internal to the Postal Service operations.”
According to the USPS, “The Postal Service uses the terms ‘cancellation’ and ‘postmark’ interchangeably. The marks can be applied manually or by automation on the Postal Service’s cancellation machines.”
In what this newspaper hopes is unrelated news, the Postal Regulatory Commission recently announced it will no longer authorize postage rate increases more often than annually through 2030 for USPS “market dominant” services. That includes First Class Mail, Marketing Mail, Bound Printed Matter, Periodicals, Media Mail and Library Mail.
This doesn’t mean that prices will rise slower, but it should be easier to keep up with changes that only come once a year.
