USPS Raises Stamp Prices Again This Weekend: What to Know
The Postal Service is hiking postage rates July 12 in its eighth increase over five years. Here's how prices have climbed.
The U.S. Postal Service is doing it again. Starting July 12, stamp prices are going up — marking the eighth time the USPS has raised postage rates in just five calendar years. If that pace feels relentless, that's because it is.
For everyday consumers, another price hike means another quiet tax on anything you mail — bills, birthday cards, small-business invoices. You might not feel it in a single stamp, but stack eight increases over five years and the cumulative bite is real. Historical charts of stamp prices show a staircase that only goes one direction: up.
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For small-business owners and direct-mail marketers, this isn't a rounding error — it's a cost-of-doing-business line item that keeps expanding. If you're running any operation that depends on physical mail volume, now is the time to audit that spend and ask whether digital alternatives are eating into your margin less aggressively.
The broader picture here is an institution caught in a classic death spiral: fewer people mail things because it costs more, revenue softens, so rates rise again to compensate. The USPS has been navigating this structural pressure for years, and each new rate hike is both a symptom and a cause of declining mail volume.
If you're a stamp hoarder or a philatelist, forever stamps bought before July 12 will retain their face value at the new rate — that's one trade even the bears can get behind. Continue reading at MarketWatch.com
