USPS dates by destination and service. Pick yours; the label updates as you go.
Example: Ohio. Pick where yours is going.
SHIP BY
Ship by Thu Dec 17
= 53 days (USPS Ground)
Counting from your ship day, Sun Oct 25.
This is not a tracking number. It is 53 days.
not a postage label · printed by plusbeauxjours
Hanukkah Dec 4–12. USPS: “Please note that Hanukkah (Dec. 4 - Dec. 12) is earlier this year so please adjust accordingly.”
Carrier-recommended dates, not a guarantee. Delivery can vary by origin, destination and acceptance time (USPS).
Dates accessed Oct 25, 2026From the USPS holiday shipping page and the USPS newsroom release of Sept. 22, 2026. The sender is assumed to be in the U.S.; for mail from Alaska, Hawaii or Puerto Rico, check usps.com. FedEx and UPS stay off until we’ve read their own pages.
Pick where the package is going, how you’ll send it and the day you can get to the Post Office. The label prints the last day USPS recommends for that service and destination, for expected delivery before Dec. 25, and counts the calendar days from your ship day to it. On Sun Oct 25, a USPS Ground Advantage box to Ohio reads “Ship by Thu Dec 17 = 53 days (USPS Ground)”.
If your service has already closed on the day you can ship, the label names the next faster USPS service that still makes it, counting a deadline that falls on your ship day. Miss Ground on Dec 18 and it says “Priority by Fri Dec 18”. When every USPS date has passed, it says so and stops there.
The barcode on the label encodes nothing but the days you have left: one bar per day. It isn’t a tracking number, and the caption under it says exactly that. Come back next week and it is shorter.
These are USPS’s recommended send-by dates, not guarantees, and we don’t estimate transit times. For mail between two particular ZIP Codes on a particular day, USPS has a service commitments lookup. To find a counter near you, use the USPS Post Office locator.
FedEx and UPS publish their own 2026 holiday schedules. We show their dates only after reading the carrier’s own page; until then the FedEx and UPS tabs link to FedEx’s 2026 last-day-to-ship document and UPS’s holiday schedule instead. “Any” means carriers we’ve verified, which today is USPS alone.
| Service | Send by |
|---|---|
| USPS Ground Advantage | Thu Dec 17 |
| First-Class Mail | Thu Dec 17 |
| Priority Mail | Fri Dec 18 |
| Priority Mail Express | Sat Dec 19 |
| Service | Send by |
|---|---|
| USPS Ground Advantage | No date (10+ day service expectation) |
| First-Class Mail | Thu Dec 17 |
| Priority Mail | Fri Dec 18 |
| Priority Mail Express | Sat Dec 19 |
| ZIPs | USPS Ground Advantage | First-Class Mail | Priority Mail | Priority Mail Express Military Service |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 090–092 | Wed Nov 4 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 16 |
| 093 | Wed Nov 4 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | N/A |
| 094–099 | Wed Nov 4 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 16 |
| 340 | Wed Nov 4 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 16 |
| 962–966 | Wed Nov 4 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 16 |
| First-Class Package International Service | Priority Mail International | Priority Mail Express International | First-Class Mail International |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 9 | Wed Dec 16 | Not listed |
Footnotes from USPS: actual delivery may vary based on origin, destination, Post Office acceptance time and other conditions. Ground Advantage between the lower 48 and Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the Freely Associated States has a 10-day or more service expectation. Priority Mail Express Military Service is available only at selected military and diplomatic Post Offices. Since Aug. 1, 2023, USPS no longer processes refund requests for guaranteed service on these items.
Hanukkah: “Please note that Hanukkah (Dec. 4 - Dec. 12) is earlier this year so please adjust accordingly.” (USPS). No carrier publishes a last day to ship for New Year.
Within the lower 48 states: Thursday, Dec. 17 for USPS Ground Advantage and First-Class Mail, Friday, Dec. 18 for Priority Mail, and Saturday, Dec. 19 for Priority Mail Express. USPS calls these recommended send-by dates for expected delivery before Dec. 25.
USPS Ground Advantage to APO/FPO/DPO addresses closes Wednesday, Nov. 4. First-Class Mail and Priority Mail: Wednesday, Dec. 9. Priority Mail Express Military Service: Wednesday, Dec. 16, except ZIP 093, where USPS lists it as N/A.
USPS doesn't give one. Ground Advantage between the lower 48 and Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and the U.S. territories has a 10-day or more service expectation that varies by distance, so USPS points you to the estimated delivery date for your ZIP Codes. First-Class Mail (Dec. 17), Priority Mail (Dec. 18) and Priority Mail Express (Dec. 19) do have dates.
Wednesday, Dec. 9 for First-Class Package International Service and Priority Mail International, and Wednesday, Dec. 16 for Priority Mail Express International. The dates are the same for all nine USPS country groups, Canada and Mexico included. USPS lists no First-Class Mail International date.
UPS publishes its 2026 year-end holiday schedule on ups.com. We haven't been able to verify it ourselves yet, so we link to UPS instead of copying dates from other websites, which disagree with each other. Once we've checked UPS's own page, the dates appear here.
FedEx publishes a 2026 last-day-to-ship document on fedex.com. We haven't verified it yet, so we show a link to FedEx and no dates. Once we've read FedEx's own document, its dates appear here.
No carrier publishes one. Hanukkah 2026 runs Dec. 4 to Dec. 12, and USPS says it "is earlier this year so please adjust accordingly", so send earlier than the Christmas dates. Nobody publishes a last day to ship for New Year, so this tool doesn't invent one.
No. USPS calls them recommended send-by dates: actual delivery can vary with origin, destination, Post Office acceptance time and other conditions. Since Aug. 1, 2023, USPS no longer processes refund requests for guaranteed service on these items.