Will FedEx and UPS Deliver to your Mailbox Eventually?

Everyone knows the United States Postal Service‘s mail delivery system is a monopoly product. That means that, by law, USPS is the only carrier that can deliver mail to our mailboxes. In fact, only two parties can legally touch a residential mailbox: USPS and the customer who receives the mail. However, the Trump administration recently published a report in December 2018 stating that “USPS should explore licensing access to the mailbox” as a means of generating new revenue. What does that mean exactly? Basically, the Trump administration is suggesting that USPS should allow private carriers such as FedEx and UPS to deliver to your mailbox…for a fee that they would pay to USPS, of course.

Why Is USPS the Only Carrier That Can Legally Touch Mailboxes?

To put it simply, it’s just the law. In 1934, Congress enacted a law prohibiting anyone from putting their hands in mailboxes besides USPS and the customer who receives the mail. They passed this law to clamp down on people not paying for postage and delivering letters themselves, and it’s still in effect to this day.

Technically, that law means it’s a crime for even you to place a letter in someone else’s mailbox! So, think twice next time you decide to drop a note in your neighbor’s mailbox.

Why We Don’t Think It Makes Sense for FedEx and UPS to Deliver to Your Mailbox

While we respect the Trump administration’s initiative to generate more revenue for USPS, we don’t think this solution makes sense. Why, you ask? Well, first of all: UPS and FedEx don’t touch mail to begin with. The majority of the products they ship are packages, both large and small…and if you think about it, those packages won’t fit inside of normal mailboxes! That’s a big reason why these carriers leave packages on your doorstep, in addition to it being illegal for them to touch your mailbox, of course.

Since most packages won’t even fit inside mailboxes in the first place, this whole idea may be a moot point. To quote that famous line from Zoolander, “How can we be expected to teach children to learn how to read if they can’t even fit inside the building?”