Update: New Address Standards for Presorted, Carrier Route, and Automation Rate Letters and Flats

On Wednesday we published two Federal Register notices proposing new address standards for letters and flats mailed at presorted, carrier route, and automation rates. For flats [HTML | [PDF], our proposal includes new barcode, address placement, and address formatting requirements. For letters [HTML | [PDF], we propose new address type size and spacing requirements. We encourage mailers to review and comment before December 10, 2007.

We plan to publish final rules in January and give mailers at least 12 months to update their mailing systems and make related changes to mailpiece design.