Unless new Postmaster General David Steiner reverses his predecessor’s policy of semi-annual postage price increases, the Postal Service’s stated schedule calls for another to be effective in January 2026. If that plan holds, the necessary filings with the Postal Regulatory Commission would occur in early October, and be based on the CPI as of August.
The “adders,” additional rate authority granted to the USPS in November 2020 by the PRC, would not apply for a January 2026 price change. Of the three adders, the “retirement’ adder expired as of the last rate increase, so a possible second 2026 price increase (likely in July) would include only the “density” adder, to be announced by the PRC at the end of March, and the fixed 2% “non-compensatory” adder appliable only to Periodicals.
Fortunately for ratepayers, the cost-of-living index, determined by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, has been changing gradually in recent months, increasing more slowly than in the past. In turn, this has meant the Postal Service’s CPI-based rate authority (the “cap”), a rolling twelve-month average compared to a rolling average of the preceding twelve months, has been declining.