USPS raises Forever stamp price to 82 cents as losses mount
The Forever stamp climbed to 82 cents, adding another cost for households and small businesses as USPS posted a $9.0 billion loss last year.
A Forever stamp now costs 82 cents, up from 78 cents, adding another expense for households, seniors, small businesses and anyone still mailing bills, payments or legal documents as the U.S. Postal Service’s latest price change took effect Sunday, July 12.
The increase is part of a broader mailing-services package USPS filed on April 9 with the Postal Regulatory Commission. The agency said the changes would lift mailing-services product prices by about 4.8 percent overall, and its FAQ says the new rates also include a 4-cent increase in the price of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp. USPS’s price-change page shows the July 2026 update became effective July 12, 2026.
The higher stamp price lands while the Postal Service is still deep in the red. USPS reported a $9.0 billion GAAP net loss in fiscal 2025, along with a $2.7 billion controllable loss, on operating revenue of $80.5 billion. Total volume fell to 108.7 billion pieces, down 3.3 percent from the previous year, and First-Class Mail volume declined 5 percent even as First-Class Mail revenue rose 1.5 percent.
The stamp increase is only the latest in a run of repeated hikes. Over the past five years, USPS has raised the price of a first-class stamp six times, pushing it up 34 percent from 58 cents in 2021 to 78 cents before this latest move. Other mailing products also rose in the July package, including domestic postcards and international postcards and letters.
The financial pressure reaches back years. The U.S. Postal Service Office of Inspector General says the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act required 10 annual prefunding payments of more than $5 billion for retiree health obligations, a burden that reshaped USPS finances. USPS’s Delivering for America plan says the agency is trying to avoid $160 billion in projected losses by 2030, and Postmaster General David P. Steiner told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee on June 24 in a hearing titled Reforming the U.S. Postal Service’s Broken Business Model.
USPS says its rates remain among the most affordable in the industrialized world, but the math facing the system is stark. With first-class mail still shrinking and operating losses still mounting, the 82-cent stamp is another sign of a postal network trying to hold together its universal service mission with a deteriorating business base.
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