Postmark Defined: How a New USPS Rule Could Affect Mail Delivery Dates in Washington
A new United States Postal Service (USPS) rule which went into effect on December 24, 2025, formally defines the meaning of a postmark and seeks to clarify the relationship between postmarks and the date of mailing. The rule, which added section 608.22, “Postmarks and Postal Possession,” to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM), does not change any existing postal operations or postmarking practices but instead is intended to “explain the Postal Service’s operational use of the postmark and to clarify what information postmarks can be reliably taken to convey.”
Many people assume their mail is postmarked on the date it is received by USPS. However, while the presence of a postmark does confirm that the mail was in the possession of USPS on the identified date, it does not necessarily indicate the first day that USPS had possession of the mail piece. Instead, as explicitly stated by the new rule, the postmark date will now primarily reflect when an item was first processed. This means that a postmark date applied at a processing facility may be later than the date the mail was first accepted by USPS.
The fact that postmarks do not necessarily indicate the date of mailing has wider implications for administrative and legal systems that utilize the postmark to indicate when something was mailed. In Washington, court and administrative rules often use the date of the postmark for determining whether specific documents were mailed before the filing deadline. For example, WAC 263-12-01501 stipulates that, where a statute or rule imposes a time limitation for filing written communication with the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals, the date of the USPS postmark “shall be presumed to be the date the written communication was mailed to the Board,” unless evidence is presented to the contrary.
Therefore, it will be important to take this new USPS rule into account when mailing time-sensitive documents. To ensure your mail is postmarked by the date you need, the USPS recommends the following:
- For no additional fee, you may request a manual postmark at any Post Office, station, or branch when tendering your mail. Because the manual postmark is applied upon acceptance at the retail counter, the date of the postmark will align with the mailing date.
- If you wish to retain a record or proof of the date of mailing, you may purchase a Certificate of Mailing. Registered Mail and Certified Mail services also provide mailing receipts for individual mail pieces.
- You can make adjustments to your mailing behavior by dispatching your mail earlier. The USPS recommends mailing important documents at least one week before the deadline.
- Many agencies and courts allow service by electronic transmission. Therefore, you can bypass the postal system entirely by filing electronically instead of by mail. This also provides instant confirmation that your filing was received.
With this knowledge in mind, you will now be better equipped to ensure your time-sensitive mail is postmarked correctly.
Please do not hesitate to contact Emily at (971) 867-2725 or to discuss the changes and how it might impact your claim.
Posted by Emily Anderson.
