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ARTICLE · 07 JANUARY 2026

Time Critical Postmark? New USPS Regulations

By notice published in the Federal Register on November 24, 2025, the United States Postal Service (the "USPS") added a Section 608.11 ("Section 608.11") to its Domestic Mail Manual...

United StatesTax

By notice published in the Federal Register on November 24, 2025, the United States Postal Service (the "USPS") added a Section 608.11 ("Section 608.11") to its Domestic Mail Manual (the "DMM") effective as of December 25, 2025, to clarify (or some would say, to revise) when an item is "postmarked" under the DMM. These regulations have potential impacts on commercial contracts, tax filings, and voting rights, among other issues. The text of the notice is available here.

Section 608.11 emphasizes that a matter is not "postmarked" when it is delivered to a retail post office or inserted into a mailbox. Rather, an item is "postmarked" only when it is processed at a processing location. This can have oversized effects in rural areas, which may be many miles from a processing location, but even in urban areas, the date of processing can be one or more days after delivery to the retail location. Section 608.11 offers advice to anyone who must be certain of a postmarked

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