The USPS Ethics Office wants to remind employees of the rules on the giving and receiving of holiday gifts, whether from colleagues or outside sources.
Postal Service regulations prohibit employees from accepting gifts given because of the person’s Postal Service position or from customers, vendors, suppliers, contractors, business partners or local businesses.
A gift is broadly defined as anything that has monetary value.
Modest refreshments (such as coffee, soda, chips and doughnuts), items intended for presentation (such as plaques and certificates) and items that are offered to the public or to all federal government employees are not considered to be gifts.
Gifts from outside the Postal Service
Employees may not accept cash, checks, money orders or cash equivalents, such as Visa, American Express or MasterCard gift cards.
Employees may accept an unsolicited noncash gift valued at $20 or less from an outside source, provided that the value of all gifts accepted by the employee from that same source does not exceed $50 in a calendar year.
Employees should decline such gifts if accepting would create an appearance that the ethics rules have been violated.
Gifts between employees
On regularly occurring occasions — such as holidays and birthdays — an employee may give a noncash gift that is valued at $10 or less to a manager or a higher-paid employee.
Employees may give an occasion-appropriate gift without a value limit to a manager or to a higher-paid colleague for a special, infrequent event, such as retirement, marriage, illness, or the birth or adoption of a child.
There are no value limits on gifts to co-workers that earn the same or less pay. There are also no limits on gifts to subordinates, but managers should be careful to avoid the appearance of special treatment and favoritism when giving such gifts.
The Ethics Blue page has more information about gift-giving regulations.
Employees who have questions should email the USPS Ethics Office.
