On December 31, 2024, the UPS/USPS Negotiated Service Agreement (NSA) officially expired, marking the end of a long, mostly silent period of negotiations. Unfortunately, these talks failed to produce a resolution, leaving shippers with unexpected consequences. Starting on January 2, 2025, shippers noticed an immediate problem: SurePost labels for P.O. Boxes and APO/FPO addresses began to be rejected without prior warning. For many, this left them scrambling to find a solution, as USPS is the only carrier authorized to deliver to P.O. Boxes and APO/FPO destinations. With the expiration of the NSA, the only remaining delivery options for these specific addresses is direct USPS shipping or using workshare partners still relying on USPS for final delivery.
The USPS under Louis DeJoy has been pushing their workshare partners out of their network since mid-2024 by effectively removing DDU injections, by removing incentives for these injections, increasing Parcel Select rates, and aggressively negotiating NSA renewals. While many believed that UPS would receive special preference due to the massive USPS Parcel Select volumes they represented, in the end it wasn’t enough.
Logic suggests that UPS is planning to move these deliveries in-house, largely mirroring FedEx’s Ground Economy model. This theory is supported by the recent SurePost rate increases and DAS/EAS changes, which would provide revenue offsets for the increased cost of direct delivery. This would still leave the P.O. Box and APO/FPO deliveries without a solution. But those are a fairly small subset of current SurePost volumes.