if you ask the united states postal service, the post office is closed on sundays. But that doesn’t mean you can’t send a package on Sunday. there is a loophole, and I have used it myself. much. this can be a useful life hack.
While traditional post offices are not open on Sundays, many USPS retail stores are open for limited hours on Sundays. you can ship a package from those stores if they are open, and you will receive a Sunday postmark.
Are packages shipped on Sundays?
Although the large traditional post office is not open on Sundays, packages are sent on Sundays in a different way. the loophole is postal retail stores.
It is also important to note that the mail moves on Sunday, even if the post office is not open. therefore, it is beneficial to send a package on Saturday or Sunday instead of waiting until Monday. if you’re ever traveling down interstate highways on the weekends and see big trucks labeled u.s. mail or postal service of the united states, those trucks are full of packages.
so there is a way to send a package on Sunday. it may require a little (or a lot) of driving, but you’ll get the package postmarked a day early, and the package will arrive about a day early, too.
many usps postal stores are open on sundays
when the us postal service. uu. and some questionable websites trying to appear official say that the post office is closed on Sundays, they don’t count retail stores.
The United States Postal Service operates retail stores, which it calls postal stores, in strip malls and strip malls in most major metropolitan areas. These stores are smaller than a regular post office, but offer the same services as the post office. and most are open for a few hours on Sundays, usually in the afternoon. the whole year, even. If you vaguely remember one of these stores in a once-thriving mall, it’s probably still there. These stores are often among the last holdouts in dying malls.
and when you ship a package from one of these stores on a Sunday, you receive a postmark of that date. So if you need to mail something, and it needs to be postmarked by a certain date, sending it on a Sunday at one of these stores can give you an extra day. and at the close of business, a u.s. mail truck picks up the day’s packages and takes them to the distribution center.
technically, these stores are not a post office. but if they can do what a post office can do, do you mind? should you care? probably not.
You can use the USPS Location Finder to locate both post offices and postal stores, and check if the nearest one is open on Sundays. take two st. Examples from the Louis area, the one in central South County is open for a few hours on Sundays. the one in kirkwood is not open.
In years past, when I was selling a lot online, I would go to the nearby post office every Sunday.
post office extended holiday hours
During the holiday season, usually between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, some post offices will stay open later and stay open for a few hours on Sundays. Hours vary from year to year, so again, it’s best to check the USPS Location Finder to see what hours locations near you maintain. Holidays are by far the busiest time of year for the US Postal Service, but budget cuts in recent years have forced it to reduce its hours from what it had been in decades past.
things you can do at the post office on Sunday
Although the post office does not accept packages on Sundays, the doors are not necessarily closed. the counter is usually closed. but the area where the post office boxes are located will be open. You can also buy stamps at a vending machine, and the section that has free USPS mail supplies will be accessible.
The mailboxes themselves are accessible, so you can send a package with stamps. but packages you ship this way are postmarked Monday, not Sunday. Also note the limitations of stamped packages. any package weighing more than 13 ounces must be presented in person to a postal employee. the usps will not accept a 13.1 ounce package with seals. this rule went into effect in the early 2000s because of people sending threatening packages after 9/11. most of the letters are well under 13 ounces. even a CD in a bubble wrap typically weighs between 8 and 9 ounces, but anything larger than a paperback exceeds this limit.
this may or may not fit your definition of open. limitations on what you can mail and when it will actually hit the truck aren’t ideal. but it can meet your needs.
Also, if all you need to do is buy stamps, many convenience stores, pharmacies, and office supply stores sell stamps. the usps location finder will also help you find them. The USPS calls them Approved Postal Providers. if I need to buy stamps at 11 p.m. on Sunday for some reason, the nearest 24-hour pharmacy will be happy to sell them to me.