If you’re planning to send a letter soon, it’s time to take another look at your stamps. On July 13, the new stamp prices set by U.S. Postal Service (USPS) officially took effect. The price of a Forever stamp increased from 73 cents to 78 cents—a 5-cent increase that is part of a broader set of price hikes across both its mailing and shipping services.
These changes follow a formal filing by USPS earlier this year with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which reviews and approves postal rate adjustments. Overall, mailing service prices went up by about 7.4 percent, affecting many common postage categories.
Here’s a quick summary of some key rate changes:
- First-Class letters (1 ounce) increased from 73 cents to 78 cents
- Metered mail (1 ounce) rose from 69 cents to 74 cents
- Domestic postcards climbed from 56 cents to 61 cents
- International postcards and 1-ounce letters now cost $1.70, up from $1.65
- The additional-ounce fee for single-piece letters increased slightly from 28 cents to 29 cents
Not all prices moved up. Postal insurance rates were reduced by 12 percent, making it a little less costly to protect packages during shipping.
Shipping services also saw price increases: Priority Mail rates went up by 6.3 percent, USPS Ground Advantage jumped 7.1 percent, and Parcel Select rose 7.6 percent. The price for Priority Mail Express, however, remains unchanged.
Despite these increases, USPS emphasized that “USPS prices remain among the most affordable in the world,”
according to a recent press release.
The
price changes are part of the USPS’s “
Delivering for America” 10-year plan, a long-term strategy to modernize postal operations, improve customer service, and fix the agency’s financial struggles.
Over the past 14 years, USPS has faced $87 billion in losses,
according to the agency. Its 10-year Delivering for America plan aims to reverse a projected $160 billion in future losses through pricing changes, efficiency improvements, and expanded services.
Among the plan’s
key goals are maintaining six-day mail and seven-day package deliveries, while achieving a 95 percent on-time reliability target. Additionally, USPS aims to generate $24 billion in new revenue through innovation, build a next-generation electric delivery vehicle fleet by 2035 with congressional support, and develop best-in-class mail processing and delivery systems.
The plan also prioritizes modernizing post office locations, optimizing air and ground transportation networks, reducing non-career employee turnover by half, strengthening organizational effectiveness, and securing a supportive legislative framework.
The last price hike before this summer was
July 2024, when the cost of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp was raised from $0.68 to $0.73, also a 5‑cent increase. That increase came just months after a previous adjustment in January 2024, when the stamp price went up from 66 cents to 68 cents.
