Military Mail - U.S. Military Postal Service (MPS)

U.S. Military Postal Service (MPS)

The MPS is required to adhere to United States Postal Service (USPS) rules, federal laws, and various international laws and agreements for movement of military mail into more than 85 countries. The individual military services (Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Coast Guard, Air Force) are each, themselves, responsible for the costs, manpower, and facilities of mail that travels through their own department. This is why the military services maintains Command and Control (C2) over all assets, both in the United States and abroad.

The MPS also supports mail delivery for U.S. diplomatic facilities overseas and to deployed personnel in combat zones worldwide. Most USPS extra services, such as Certified Mail, registered mail, delivery confirmation, insured mail, certificate of mailing, return receipt, restricted delivery and return receipt for merchandise are available to the MPS. Signature confirmation may be available in the future. Mail sent from one military post office (MPO) to another MPO can be sent for free as inner/intra-theater delivery service (IDS) as long as it does not transit the United States. Military postage rates are equivalent to U.S. domestic postage rates because the Services pay the second destination transportation (SDT) costs to, from, and between MPOs. The postage paid on mail to/from MPOs only covers the cost of transporting the mail within the U.S. All military mail between the U.S. and overseas locations is subject to customs inspection in the country of destination, and customs declarations must normally be attached to packages and larger mail pieces. Some host nations may restrict or prohibit the importation of certain items, such as adult oriented material, meat products (especially pork), firearms, tobacco, etc., via the MPS. The complete list of restrictions is published in the Postal Bulletin (Overseas Military Mail), published on USPS.com. Other host nations (e.g., Germany) may have a special interchange agreement with the military postal service allowing for the mailing of articles to host nation civilian addresses.

MPOs operated or supported by the Army or Air Force use the city abbreviation APO (Army Post Office or Air Force Post Office), while Navy and Marine Corps use the city abbreviation FPO (Fleet Post Office).

Recently USPS added Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) as a valid overseas address effective January 18, 2009. The city abbreviation is DPO. As of March 2009 there are sixteen U.S. embassy locations known as DPOs. The other approximately ninety overseas U.S. embassy post offices fall under the management oversight of the Services and so are known as either APOs or FPOs. However, many will be switching to the DPO address.

Three "state" codes have been assigned depending on the geographic location of the military mail recipient and also the carrier route used for sorting the mail. They are:

• AE (ZIPs 09xxx) for Armed Forces Europe which includes Canada, Middle East, and Africa
• AP (ZIPs 962xx - 966xx) for Armed Forces Pacific
• AA (ZIPs 340xx) for Armed Forces (Central and South) Americas