The United States Postal Service acts as an independent agency within the US federal government, responsible for handling mail, packages, and parcels throughout America.
The roots of the USPS track all the way back to before the founding of our nation. The Second Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin the very first postmaster general in 1775, and the USPS was officially organized by the US government as the Post Office Department in 1792.
By 1872 the post office had been elevated to a cabinet level department in the federal government, and in 1970 as part of the Postal Reorganization Act it was established as its very own independent organization while remaining attached to the US government federal system.
Delivering mail to every legitimate address in the United States – including in some of the most rural and remote areas in our country – there are almost half a million career employees working for the USPS today, many of them handling our letters, our important documents, and our packages to make sure that they get to us quickly.
If you’ve been wondering when does USPS deliver – not just the days of mail service but also what the daily business hours for the USPS look like – we’ve got the answers for you below.
Let’s jump right in!
What Days Does USPS Deliver Mail On?
While the USPS is working pretty much around-the-clock on almost 24/7 basis, particularly on the logistical side of things, mail delivery actually goes out Monday through Saturday every week across America.
The mail delivery time of day for your specific address is going to be unique according to a variety of different factors (something we highlight in just a moment), but for the most part you can expect consistent mail delivery times on Monday through Saturday – with certain USPS offices even delivering mail on Sunday in extreme circumstances or for special events.
On top of that, the USPS also has “business hours” available Monday through Saturday at most postal office locations.
The Monday through Friday business hours are almost always scheduled between 7 AM and 5 PM or 6 PM local time, with Saturday business hours frequently a little more truncated than that. Some municipalities that post office is open between 8 AM and 3 PM local time on Saturdays, with other areas keeping their normal business hours consistent across the board Monday through Saturday.
It’s also important to understand that while your local post office maybe open from 7 AM or 8 AM in the morning the odds are pretty good that the days mail will not be sorted or headed out for delivery until a little later in the day.
Those that have a PO Box shouldn’t expect mail to actually be in their box until about 10 AM that morning.
If you’ve ever wanted to know what time does mail arrive all you have to do is check the tracking information on any of the packages or parcels you sent through the USPS.
You’ll undoubtably see a lot of overnight movement, early-morning movement, and even holidays movement as your packages or parcels go through the logistics system. It isn’t at all uncommon to see mail arrive at your local post office hours before the retail offices or PO Box section of the post office actually open up for the public.
As a general, almost universal rule across the board you can expect USPS mail delivery professionals to be working Monday through Saturday every single week of the year – no matter what.
What Time Does USPS Deliver to Me?
If you’re wondering when does the mail come in my ZIP Code or when is my mail delivered there are always going to be very specific circumstances that dictate when your mail it’s your mailbox or your PO Box, but we do have some general advice to help you out.
As highlighted above, the USPS logistics and delivery system is always working in the background.
It isn’t at all unusual to check your tracking information for a package or parcel and see movement well after your local post office is closed for the day or hours before it’s going to open.
A lot of people will say movement and tracking updates anywhere between 10 PM and 3 AM local times, with most mail arriving at a local post office or regional post office distribution center a couple of hours before the mail carriers arrive. Those mail carriers will them collect the mail, loaded into their vehicles, and get it to its final destination.
Each post office and each mail carrier has their own unique route that they will follow, too. This will impact the answer to “what time is my mail delivered” more than anything else, really.
Sometimes these mail carriers will go out to the farthest extreme of their mail route and work back towards the post office, delivering mail to the most far-flung addresses on their route before anyone else. Others will start their route with the closest addresses to them, working in circles to deliver mail as efficiently as possible.
If at all possible it’s not a bad idea to try and catch your mail carrier delivering to your home or your PO Box during the week. You’ll be able to ask them specifically “what time does USPS delivered to my house”, and they’ll be able to give you a very specific answer.
These mail carriers will almost always be able to get you within a 15 minute window of time, depending on how much mail they have to deliver that day (of course).
The only thing you may need to be aware of is that most mail delivery to home addresses is handled on a 5+1 schedule.
This means that five days of the week you have one mail carrier handling your route, with consistent deliveries whenever that individual is behind the wheel and carrying the mail for you.
The sixth day of the week, however, you have a rotating mail carrier that gives everyone else at the post office a day off during the week. Their schedule or their route may not be exactly laid out the same or as efficient as your “regular” mail carrier.
One day a week your mail may arrive at your mailbox a little later or a little earlier than you’d expect because of this reason. Keep this in mind if you’re asking the non-regular mail carrier about what times does the USPS deliver to my house during the week.
Can I Track My Mail Deliveries Each Day?
One of the best ways to track your mail delivery schedule without actually having to sit at home to catch the mail carrier and asked them in person is to jump online and track your mail using the USPS code provided on a lot of packages and parcels
When these tracked packages and parcels to your mailbox they get a delivered scan. This timestamp is immediately uploaded to the USPS database and available for you to inspect on your own from any internet enabled device.
Track a dozen or so packages or parcels and see when they specifically hit your mailbox and you’ll be able to come up with a ballpark mail delivery times schedule pretty easily.
Of course, you can also use the Informed Delivery system available free of charge from the USPS to know only better understand what mail you can expect that day but to get a better idea of when it’s going to arrive, too.
Sign up for this program on the USPS website and you’ll be able to start seeing digital scans of your envelopes, tracking information for packages, and more inside out about a week or two. It’s a really useful service (again available fully charge) that not enough people are taking advantage of these days.
Are There Any Special Days Where Mail Won’t Be Delivered?
As a general rule, the USPS is not going to be open for mail deliveries every Sunday of every week all throughout the year.
Now, there are some days where Sunday delivery (especially for third-party packages from FedEx or UPS that need “last mile” delivery through the USPS) are going to hit your mailbox. But those days are usually pretty sporadic for limited to the holiday season when the mail flow is almost overwhelming.
There are a couple of other days where you can expect the USPS to be closed.
We are talking about:
- New Year’s Day
- Martin Luther King Jr. Day
- Washington’s Birthday and Presidents Day
- Memorial Day
- Independence Day
- Labor Day
- Columbus Day
- Veterans Day
- Thanksgiving and
- Christmas
The post office will also be closed for any other federally recognized holidays as well. It’s not a bad idea to keep these things in mind when you need to send mail through the USPS or when you’re expecting packages or parcels to arrive.
How Do I Know If My Mail Is Late?
If you have discovered your mail delivery schedule and figured out mail delivery times for your home or office you can pretty easily tell if mail is late or missing without a lot of headache or hassle.
For example, first-class mail sent through the USPS is delivered (almost always) between one and three business days from the day that it is sent. If it’s been five days or more since the day that mail was sent out to you the odds are pretty good it’s late or missing and you’ll want to contact USPS customer service ASAP.
Priority Mail follows the same kind of delivery schedule that first-class mail follows. If you haven’t gotten priority Mail inside out five days from its delivery date you need to get a hold of the USPS straightaway.
Priority Mail Express, however, is guaranteed to be delivered within one or two calendar days from the moment that it was sent. Note that we are talking about calendar days and NOT business days. This means that if you send Priority Mail Express (and pay extra for the privilege) any mail not delivered within two days on the calendar should be considered late.
USPS Retail Ground is delivered within 2 to 8 business days, though the USPS recommends not contacting them unless it’s been 14 days from mailing without any delivery.
Media Mail and Bound Printed Matter follow the same delivery schedule as USPS Retail Ground.
Parcel Select and Parcel Select Lightweight mail deliveries through the USPS are usually delivered between two and nine business days. If it’s been 14 days since those parcels were sent to you contact customer service to find out what’s going on.
USPS Marketing Mail offers nonguaranteed delivery of between three and 10 business days. It is been two weeks since those pieces were sent to you and you still don’t have them a call the USPS is necessary.
The USPS customer service department is usually very responsive. Ask them “what time will my mail arrive” and explain how long it’s been and they’ll do a great job at tracking things for you.
A Virtual Address Alternative
Of course, if you aren’t interested in having to figure out mail delivery times for your home or business address through the USPS and instead want a simplified and streamlined delivery schedule it may be worth checking out US Global Mail.
US Global Mail is not just a mail scanning, mail acceptance, or mail forwarding service. You’ll also get a physical street address that adds legitimacy and credibility to your mailing address (distinct from PO Box offerings from the USPS), too.
The service also provides a mail collection option that guarantees every piece handled by US Global Mail gets scanned and sorted, ready for local pickup at your discretion (at a time convenient for you) as well as mail forwarding that can be tracked and easily scheduled, too.
To learn a little bit more about everything that US Global Mail has to offer, order see the full suite of services provided by this top-tier organization, check out their services page on their website today.
There’s a reason people rely on US Global Mail so frequently when they find the services and solutions available from the USPS to be a little lacking. The customer service, security, and support available from this organization is second to none and the modern and forward thinking approach to mail allows them to be a little more flexible than the USPS run by the slow-moving federal government.
