How long does it take my mail and packages to get here?
It depends. The speed of mail delivery is based on a couple of things — how far the item must travel and what type of mail it is, often called the mail “class.”
|
Mail Class |
Number of Days |
|---|---|
|
First-Class Mail |
1 to 5 |
|
Marketing Mail |
2 to 10 |
|
Periodicals |
2 to 9 |
|
Priority Mail |
1 to 3 |
|
Priority Mail Express |
Next day to 2 |
The Postal Service has goals for how long each class of mail should take to be delivered. And in general, the farther the mail must travel, the longer it takes to be delivered. So, a letter mailed from Washington, D.C., to San Diego is going take longer to be delivered than a letter from Washington, D.C., to Harrisburg, PA. Here are some of the most common types of mail and the Postal Service’s target number of days to deliver them within the contiguous United States.