Effective February 1, 2025, the Postal Service™ migrated from the Electronic Verification System (eVS®) to USPS® Ship. Although the Postal Service implemented the migration February 1, 2025, the Postal Service will include revisions regarding the migration in the April 7, 2025, edition of Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), in various sections.
Instead of using eVS, the Postal Service requires customers to use USPS Ship, also known as Package Platform, for the acceptance and payment of all commercial domestic and international parcel mailings. The Postal Service has discontinued eVS because USPS Ship:
n Automatically captures package attributes; and
n Has a new system infrastructure.
USPS Ship combines the attributes captured from scan data and manifested attributes to ensure customers are charged accurate postage. For consolidators with adjustments due to inaccurate original postage, the Postal Service will provide individual package costs to the mail owners.
USPS Ship offers the following:
n Data feeds via Informed Visibility® Mail Tracking and Reporting (IV®-MTR).
The automated capture enables individual package attributes to be compared to manifest data to validate accurate postage. Shortpaid (postage due) or overpaid (refunds) adjustments will be assessed upon package delivery and applied to the Enterprise Payment Account (EPA) on file.
Requirements to participate in USPS Ship are as follows. Customers must:
n Enroll in USPS Ship and be assigned a unique mail identifier (MID) for use on packages.
n Submit valid rate ingredients for payment for each package within their shipment.
n Upload manifests to USPS using the Parcel Data Exchange or Electronic Interchange (Secure File Transfer Protocol or SFTP, or Applicability Statement 2 [AS2] protocol) for payment as noted in Publication 205, Electronic Verification System (eVS®) Business and Technical Guide.
n Use USPS Ship to ship the following products:
n USPS Ground Advantage™ (formerly First-Class Package® Service).
n USPS Marketing Mail® parcels.
n USPS Marketing Mail Nonprofit parcels.
n Parcel Select® Destination Entry.
n Priority Mail Express International®.
n Priority Mail International®.
n First-Class Package International Service®.
n Include on packages a tracking number that is unique for 120 days.
Manifest Mailing Operations in USPS Ship
Mailers and shippers who meet program requirements must ship parcels via the following process:
1. The mailer or parcel shipper transmits an electronic manifest to the Postal Service detailing all USPS Ship parcels to be deposited into the mailstream on or before the date of mailing.
2. USPS Ship will validate the electronic manifest and calculate postage based on rate ingredients.
3. Postage is charged to the EPA on the day that the manifest was submitted and processed. The mailer or parcel shipper may access transactions and manifest summary information in online reports or data feeds.
4. The mailer or parcel shipper transports and enters the mail at the appropriate origin or destination entry Postal Service facility: Network distribution center/regional processing and distribution center (NDC/RP&DC), sectional center facility/regional processing and distribution center (SCF/RP&DC), destination hub (DHub), destination delivery unit (DDU), or sorting and delivery center (S&DC).
5. As parcels are deposited at the origin entry facilities, packages are run across mail-processing equipment (MPE), and captured attributes (weight, dimensions, entry, packaging) are transmitted to USPS Ship. The captured attributes are compared to manifested attributes to ensure that the correct postage has been paid. If there are discrepancies, shortpaid adjustments will be applied to the EPA.
6. As parcels are deposited at the DDU or destination sorting and delivery center (DS&DC), packages are sampled, and the sampled attributes are compared to the manifested attributes. A Statistical Quality Assessment is performed, and additional postage will be charged to the EPA.
7. The mailer or parcel shipper may access details in online reports or data feeds.
Postage Assessments
USPS Ship will automatically collect postage daily based on the electronic manifest(s) received that day from mailers. Postage will also be calculated and assessed as follows when errors are detected:
n Census verification occurs for packages that are automatically captured while packages are processed on MPE. The individual package information captured may include the weight, dimensions, USPS packaging, ZIP Code® of scan, and destination ZIP Code. The captured information will be compared to the manifest information after the delivery scan for the package. The correct postage will be assessed, and additional postage will be charged or refunded to reflect the accurate postage for the individual packages.
n Misshipped parcels are included in the census verification. The manifest is matched to a scan and the destination ZIP Code and destination rate Indicator of the parcel is compared to the mail direction file (MDF) to determine the correct drop-ship location. The ZIP Code of the first scan event is compared to the expected drop-ship location specified in the MDF. If the ZIP Code of the first scan event does not match the expected drop-ship location, then a misshipped error is logged, and additional postage will be charged.
n Unmanifested packages are identified by scanned packages without a manifest for payment in USPS Ship.
n Duplicate packages are identified by scanned packages with duplicate barcodes without a payment for each package in USPS Ship.
n Intelligent Mail® package barcode (IMpb®) noncompliance is measured using the same evaluation and established thresholds for the monthly period as previously required by eVS.
n Presort is measured by the 24-hour period to meet presort minimums by mail class as previously required by eVS.
n Statistical Quality Assessment (SQA) occurs for Parcel Select, Bound Printed Matter, and USPS Marketing Mail packages that are entered and claimed at DDU prices. This verification is similar to the Postage Adjustment Factor (PAF), but is limited to DDU- or DS&DC-entered packages. If the postage for the packages that are sampled at a DDU or DS&DC compared to the manifested data exceeds 1.5 percent underpayment, the percentage in error will be multiplied by the total postage for the mail class for the month, and this calculated additional postage charge will be assessed. Only packages that are prompted for sampling will be part of this verification. Any non-prompted samples will be part of the census verification.
n Content audit is measured using the same business rules as previously required by eVS.
Postage Payment
Commercial shippers entering at a business-mail entry unit (BMEU) with small mail quantities may use Click-N–Ship® or USPS Ship to enter their parcels. Otherwise, parcel shippers or consolidators and mailers:
n Using permit imprint as the payment method and claiming commercial or negotiated service agreement (NSA) prices and who are not using Click-N-Ship are required to use USPS Ship for postage manifesting and payment.
n Who use USPS application programming interfaces (APIs) to create labels and submit their manifest files are also required to enroll in USPS Ship.
Postage Payment Schedule
Parcel shippers or consolidators and mailers pay for postage as follows:
n Daily: Postage for manifest files is charged the day of the manifest receipt or processing. The census verification is charged or refunded the day of delivery.
n Monthly: Unmanifested, duplicates, IMpb, presort, content audit, and SQA are assessed monthly and charged for on the 15th of the following month.
Retrieving Data
USPS Ship enables customers to view manifest and assessment data by accessing online reports or subscribing to IV-MTR data feeds as follows:
n Accessing Online Reports. The online dashboard provides summary details for manifests that were charged, and package-level details for postage adjustments. Customers must complete the following to access the USPS Ship reports:
n Log into the Business Customer Gateway (BCG).
n Under the “Manage Services” menu, go to “USPS Ship Report” service and click on Go to Service.
n Click Summary Dashboard. The monthly activity report will be displayed.
n Click Reports. In its drop-down menu view and select from the list of available reports. Reports may be filtered, sorted, and exported in Excel and CSV (comma-separated-value plain-text) formats.
n Subscribing to IV-MTR Data Feeds. IV-MTR allows customers to customize their shipment. They may select and organize information fields to be included and choose the frequency of reports, the file format, and the shipment delivery location. Customers must complete the following to set up IV-MTR subscriptions:
n Under the “Manage Services” menu, go to “Informed Visibility” service and click Go to Service.
n Click Create and Manage Data Feeds.
n Under “Data Feed Delivery” select the server, and then the frequency.
n Define the data fields of the data feed. Detailed instructions on the following are available on PostalPro™:
n How to access IV-MTR: Under “Resources,” click on the user guide Applying for Access to Informed Visibility® Mail Tracking & Reporting (IV®-MTR).
n How to customize data feeds: Go to “Orientation Training for Informed Visibility® – Mail Tracking & Reporting (IV®-MTR).”
The Postal Service believes using USPS Ship will provide customers with a more efficient mailing experience.
Although the Postal Service will not publish these revisions in the DMM until April 7, 2025, the standards became effective February 1, 2025. An article with full details on these revisions to be incorporated into the DMM will be published as soon as possible on Postal Explorer.®
The Postal Service will incorporate the revisions into the next edition of the online DMM, which is available on Postal Explorer at pe.usps.com.