The USPS said its busiest week begins Monday, December 15. It reminded customers that next week also includes the last ship-by dates of the holiday 2025 season (for expected delivery before December 25), and it said it’s ready.
The ship-by date for the popular USPS Ground Advantage is December 17, excluding Alaska & Hawaii. See the full ship-by date calendar on the USPS website, including for international and Military mail – and be sure to read the fine-print.
The USPS said it has installed over 600 package sorters since 2020, including 94 this year, increasing daily processing capacity from 60 million to 88 million.
It also noted that Post Office locations nationwide will be closed Christmas Day (Thursday, Dec. 25, 2025) and New Year’s Day (Thursday, Jan. 1, 2026). All Post Office locations will be open, and regular mail delivery will resume, on Friday, Dec. 26, 2025, and Friday, Jan. 2, 2026. However, services and hours of operation may vary by location.
Relatedly, eBay published eBay Labels ship-by dates on Seller Center, including for items sent via eBay Standard Envelope, USPS, FedEx, and UPS.
Interested in learning how the USPS handled holiday peak-shipping last year? The postal Inspector General published a report this year (note that the last quarter of 2024 was in USPS’s “fiscal year 2025”), summarizing in part:
“The Postal Service lowered the performance targets for FY 2025, and it adjusted the data used to measure service performance during peak season. Even with those adjustments, the Postal Service did not meet five of the six service targets during peak season, and delays continued after peak season—a time during which the Postal Service experiences a high volume of returns—as well. Similarly, the Postal Service was not successful in meeting some of its retail and delivery goals during peak season.
“Opportunities exist for the Postal Service to improve its peak season initiatives to better forecast for transportation needs in certain markets, strategically offload mail between processing facilities, and plan for the impact of increased package volume post peak season. In addition, we found that the Postal Service canceled 13,875 requested or scheduled transportation trips during the FY 2025 peak and post-peak seasons, resulting in costs of $8.8 million for the period of November 9, 2024, through January 31, 2025.”
