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 date, including having an item hand-stamped in a retail postal location, utilizing registered or certified mail, or purchasing a certificate of mailing.
While Section 608.11 has raised concerns about the time that a mail-in ballot is “postmarked” it has effects beyond voting rights issues. Consumers who pay bills by mail may incur penalties for late payment if they simply deposit mail in a receptacle (either free standing or at a retail postal facility) on the last day of the due date of their invoice. Additionally, there are a number of issues under which a right or obligation under the Federal Tax Code will be impacted. For instance, under 26 U.S. Code § 7502, timely mailing tax returns and other documents is treated as timely mailing. Pursuant to this statute, timely mailing is proved by the postmark date. Thus, under the new USPS rules, just putting a tax return in the US mail before the date it is due will not suffice because one has no idea what date will actually be shown as the postmark. Similarly, the date of a postmarked petition to the United States tax court or of an objection may determine whether an objection to a tax assessment is timely filed or will be dismissed. See, Thomas v Com’r, United States Tax Court, March 11, 2020, T.C. Memo. 2020-33, 2020 WL 1181811.
Commercial contracts that stipulate how and when notices, demands, and other actions must be taken, such as exercise of options in leases and purchase and sales agreements and termination of due diligence periods in commercial agreements should be reviewed. Commercial parties can stipulate how time periods, notices, and other actions will be governed and are not necessarily constrained by the rules of the DMM. However, without clarification as to the meaning of “postmarked” it is possible that the terms of Section 608.11 will be applied in a dispute under a commercial contract. If there are concerns about the potential uncertainty of the date of a postmarked mailing, parties may consider alternative delivery means, such as electronic mail or overnight express delivery services.
For more information regarding this notice, contact Liskow attorneys Marilyn Maloney, Leon Rittenberg III, and Paul Kitziger, and visit Liskow’s Tax Disputes page.