USPS sets deadline for changes to processing plant entry times — Jan 29

Jan 4, 2023

All Periodicals must be entered and accepted by 8 a.m. to be counted in that day’s entry. Mail entered after 8 a.m. will be counted as entered the following day. The change will make a difference in delivery speeds for the affected mailers. A mailing entered at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday, for example, would be schedule for processing on Thursday.

NNA Member Alert 
Contact: tonda@nna.org

Periodicals mailers entering their mail at USPS processing plants have until January 29 to reset their production schedules to meet the new USPS deadline for entering mail. On that date, all Periodicals must be entered and accepted by 8 a.m. to be counted in that day’s entry.  Mail entered after 8 a.m. will be counted as entered the following day.

The change will make a difference in delivery speeds for the affected mailers.  A mailing entered at 9 a.m. on a Wednesday, for example, would be scheduled for processing on Thursday. Some publishers will lose a day of delivery time because of the change if they are unable to achieve the earlier entry.

There are two major exceptions to the change:

  • Mail entered at local post offices
  • 5-digit ZIP code containers (pallets or flats trays) entered at a processing facility that does not need to be sorted in order to move to the next step in delivery 

Sacks will no longer be accepted at the plants. Mailers should make arrangements to use flats trays if they do not have sufficient volume to present mail on pallets.

The USPS Industry Advisory with details of the entry time change is here: Changes to Periodical Critical Entry Times, Effective January 29, 2023 | PostalPro (usps.com).