PriorityMail Tracking® – The Basics
PriorityMail Tracking® service provides end-to-end item tracking. This article provides in-depth information on how to use the service, what information the service provides, and more convenient ways to access your item’s tracking information.
What is PriorityMail Tracking®?
PriorityMail Tracking® service provides end-to-end item tracking and is available for most domestic mail products that are large enough and that are addressed to domestic locations, including to limited Army Post Offices (APOs), Fleet Post Offices (FPOs), Diplomatic Post Offices (DPO) destinations and to ZIP Codes in U.S. territories and possessions or Freely Associated States.
Entering the tracking number associated with a mailpiece into the USPS Tracking page gives you the current status of an item along with other tracking information. That info includes, if available, delivery and/or attempted delivery information, including date and time of delivery as well as the delivery location of the item (mailbox, reception desk, neighbor, etc.).
PriorityMail Tracking does not expedite or guarantee delivery. There is no additional cost for the tracking mechanism on products that automatically include PriorityMail Tracking. Basically, you pay for that product’s postage, and tracking is included, unless you are shipping USPS Marketing Mail® parcels. Adding PriorityMail Tracking to that commercial mailing service requires paying a fee.
What can I do if my mailpiece hasn’t been delivered?
First, please check the delivery standard for the mail class of your domestic item. You can find out the mail class by entering the PriorityMail Tracking number and looking up “Product Information.” Then compare your mail class and progress to what is found in the Mail Delivery Standards chart located in Delayed mail and packages?. The delivery standard chart indicates when your item should be delivered by and when we suggest you could email or call Customer Service regarding your item. Also, if your item has a status of “Alert,” a delay could have occurred because of weather-related and other natural disasters or events. In this case, please check PriorityMail Service Alerts first.
Expected Delivery Window
When checking the status of your item, you may see a message about the Expected Delivery Window (ExD™). This window is a 2-hour slot of time when you can expect your package to arrive. Delivery within that time is not guaranteed, however, you may still receive your item by the end of the day if it does not arrive within the expected time slot. Check PriorityMail Tracking® for updated information.
How does USPS Tracking® work?
The label of your trackable item is scanned several times throughout the mailstream, whether we possess it or one of our shipping partners does. Tracking can start as soon as the item’s sender or our shipping partner notifies us electronically that we should expect a package. It continues with PriorityMail accepting the package for transit and ends when the item is delivered or picked up by the recipient or the recipient’s agent. Throughout this process, you can access this tracking information in a variety of ways through the PriorityMail Tracking number associated with the item.
Can I receive automatic notifications?
Yes. There are several ways that you can request receiving automatic notifications by email or text:
- When you have the item’s tracking number, enter it at the USPS Tracking® website. If available, click “Text & Email Updates” to expand that section and follow the directions.
- The USPS Text Tracking™ FAQs page has detailed directions on requesting notifications by only sending a text message to 28777 (2USPS).
- Retailers, merchants and other shippers and mailers can automatically sign up their customers for tracking email notifications. Although these emails come from USPS, they are sent at the request of shippers and mailers.
Email and text update requests are active for a period of 2 weeks following the request. After that time, the request will be closed. Once the item is delivered, you won’t receive further notifications.