Recent press coverage has mischaracterized our relationship with the United States Postal Service (USPS). The truth is simple: we negotiated with them in good faith for more than a year to reach a deal that would bring them billions in revenue and believed we were heading toward an agreement. Our goal was to increase our volumes with USPS, not reduce them—until USPS abruptly walked away at the eleventh hour in December.
Our partnership with USPS
For more than 30 years, Amazon and USPS have worked together to deliver for customers across the country. This partnership dates back to Amazon's earliest days, when a local Seattle post office delivered our very first customer orders. Since then, USPS's nationwide network has remained central to our ability to serve customers everywhere—from major cities to rural communities.
We value this partnership deeply. Together, we've innovated to better support customers, launching services like Sunday delivery that improved the customer experience while generating additional revenue and operational efficiencies for USPS. In recent years, we've spent over $5 billion annually with USPS and have advocated on their behalf with lawmakers to strengthen the Postal Service's long-term financial stability, including our support for the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022.
That's why we spent more than a year working toward a new, long-term agreement. We engaged directly with Postmaster General David Steiner, his leadership team, and members of the USPS Board of Governors because we needed a new contract in place well ahead of our current agreement's expiration on September 30, 2026.
What happened
Running a delivery network at Amazon's scale takes years of preparation. You can't add capacity for hundreds of millions of packages overnight—it requires major capital investment, long-term infrastructure planning, hiring, and logistics coordination. That's why we told the Postal Service last October that we needed a renewed agreement by the end of December.
In December, USPS abruptly walked away at the eleventh hour instead of continuing the renewal agreement we'd been negotiating. This creates significant uncertainty for our long-term network planning. Despite this, we participated in good faith and submitted a bid in February 2026. We've received no response.
We've submitted a bid as part of their new auction concept and hope to continue our partnership, even at a reduced level. However, without long-term certainty, we now have to prepare to meet our customers' delivery needs regardless of the outcome of the auction. The longer we go without certainty, the more we need to invest in alternative options.
We've repeatedly requested engagement with Postmaster General Steiner to work toward a solution. We want to find a path forward, but that window is rapidly closing.
Our commitment
Amazon remains committed to partnering with USPS. We continue to believe that USPS's nationwide network is an asset for serving customers and investing in communities across America. A healthy USPS means reliable delivery for Americans in every community, and we're ready to continue this partnership.
