If you’re planning to snail mail your tax returns this year or are mailing bills that need to make it to their destinations on time, note that the timing on your mail may be different this year.
Changes at the U.S. Postal Service may cause a delay in when people you’re sending to get your mail.
In December 2025, the Postal Service announced that mail may not be postmarked the day it’s dropped off, because of changes in its transportation operations. Usually, a postmark was printed on mail the same day you mail an item and tells the receiver the date your mail was processed.
A Delay for U.S. Mail
So, with this delay, it may change that postmarked date, and it may also change the day your mail arrives to a local processing plant.
The change is part of Delivering for America, the USPS’s 2021 plan to slowly put in new operational and infrastructure changes to increase efficiency and lower costs. Part of the plan is consolidating facilities into regional centers, so according to the Brookings Institution, which results in some mail having to travel “hundreds of miles away.”
So, the delays in postage could impact Americans when paying bills, sending their taxes or voting in the mail.
Postmark delays could have legal and administrative consequences for consumers, especially around tax season and elections.
According to Brookings, ” The new section (DMM 608.11) now clarifies that a postmark will no longer indicate the date a piece of mail was deposited with U.S. Postal Service (USPS). The Postal Service notes this misalignment ‘has and will become more common’ as it continues consolidating its processing network and standardizing transportation schedules under the Delivering for America (DFA).”
Brookings Institution Senior Fellow Elena Patel wrote in a report that, “the DFA aims to strengthen USPS’ financial position, but it also disrupts an evidentiary tool that has long been woven into election law, tax administration, court procedure, and many other regulatory frameworks.”
What Is a Postmark?
A postmark, by definition, is “an official postal marking on a piece of mail” and specifically “a mark showing the post office and date of mailing,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Brookings points out that while “none of these reforms were designed with postmark timing in mind,” still, the “DFA plan is aimed at aligning the network with contemporary mail flows and achieving cost-savings that can improve long-term financial stability. But taken together—more centralized processing, slower service standards, and new transportation schedules—they change the timing and location of a mail pieces’ first handling.”
They add, “This shift has downstream implications for legal and administrative systems that rely on postmarks as evidence of timely action, with disproportionate effects for rural communities.”
