With so much focus recently on the 2016 presidential election on November 8, it can be easy to forget that the holidays are just around the corner as well. And that means, it’s time to start thinking about holiday shipping and mailing dates. The holiday season is the busiest time of year for the USPS so making sure you get your letters and packages into the mail stream on time is critical to ensuring arrival before the holidays.

The deadline for domestic first class letters is December 20 and for priority mail it’s December 21. For those shipping packages Standard Post, the cutoff date is December 15.

For those of us who have family and friends in the military or work for a government agency stationed overseas, you will need to address your mail using Army/Air Post Offices (APO’s), Fleet Post Offices (FPO’s) and Diplomatic Post Offices (DPO’s). For these types of addresses, first class letters and cards need to be in the mail by December 9 and Priority Mail Express Military Service (PMEMS) packages by December 16 in order for packages to arrive by December 25.

So what does this mean to your business mail? Business mailers may need to adjust their mailing schedules to account for the large influx of first class letters and parcels. A USPS letter carrier will only take as much mail with them as they can deliver in a day on their delivery route. If a letter carrier has an extremely large amount of first class letters and parcels, those will take priority over presort standard mail – a common postage rate for business mailers. Because standard mail could be delayed during November and December, you may want to think about mailing first class if your mailing is time sensitive.

For more detailed deadlines based on different postage rates, refer to the charts below, supplied by the USPS.