Effective January 19, 2025, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), in various sections, to reflect changes effective January 19, 2025, to prices and mailing standards for domestic competitive products as established by the Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service.
No product changes are scheduled in January 2025 for the following competitive products:
Changes effective January 19, 2025, are to the following:
Intelligent Mail Package Barcode Noncompliance Fee
To encompass all compliance qualities included under the Intelligent Mail Package Barcode (IMpb) Noncompliance Fee, the Postal Service is renaming the IMpb Noncompliance Fee the Package-Quality-Noncompliance Fee.
Intelligent Mail Matrix Barcode
The Postal Service is requiring mailers to add a supplemental GS1-DataMatrix (2D) Intelligent Mail matrix barcode (IMmb) to domestic shipping labels to improve customers’ package visibility. The IMmb must be placed in the address block to the left of the delivery address.
Optionally, a mailer may place a second IMmb in the lower right corner of the shipping label. The Postal Service recommends using the second IMmb on all labels.
Mailers adding the IMmb barcode on their packages allows the Postal Service a greater opportunity for the package to be scanned, providing customers with better visibility of their packages.
The Postal Service will also update Publication 52, Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Matter, for consistency in barcode application.
Live-Animal and Perishable Handling Fee
The Postal Service is implementing a Live-Animal and Perishable Handling Fee. Mailers shipping and entering any type of live animal or perishable food (e.g., fruit, meat), into the Postal Service mail network at retail and commercial Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, and USPS Ground Advantage prices will be assessed this fee. The Live-Animal and Perishable Handling Fee is nonrefundable once the mail item enters the Postal Service network. The Live-Animal and Perishable Handling Fee is charged in addition to the Live-Animal Transportation Fee, when applicable, specified in the Notice 123 — Price List.
The Postal Service will also update Publication 52, Hazardous, Restricted, and Perishable Matter, to provide detailed information on the fee requirement.
Hazardous-Materials Shipping-Label Markings
The Postal Service is revising its current requirement to include the hazardous-materials icon (“H”) instead of the service icon on a shipping-address label when mailing eligible hazardous materials. Items containing mailable hazardous materials addressed to an Army Post Office (APO), Fleet Post Office (FPO), or Diplomatic Post Office (DPO), the U.S. territories and possessions, and the Freely Associated States, are excluded from the requirement to include the hazardous-materials icon instead of the service icon on a shipping-address label.
Overweight- and Oversize-Item Fee
The Postal Service is increasing the overweight- and oversize-item fee to $200.00, to continue to deter nonmailable volumes from being entered into the Postal Service network.
Resources
The Postal Service provides additional resources to help customers with this price change for competitive products. These tools include price lists, downloadable price files, and Federal Register Notices, which are available on the Postal Explorer® website at pe.usps.com.
The Postal Service will incorporate these revisions into the next update of the online DMM, which is available on Postal Explorer at pe.usps.com. An article with full details on these revisions to be incorporated into the DMM will be published as soon as possible on Postal Explorer.
