Better buy all the Forever stamps you can from the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) because the rates are going up.
Starting Jan. 21, 2024, the new prices will increase the cost of a First-Class Mail Forever stamp by two pennies from 66 cents to 68 cents, according to the USPS website.
Forever stamps, first issued in 2007, remain valid for full First-Class Mail postage no matter when the price increases after their purchase.
The rates were last increased on July 9 of this year when the cost of a first-class stamp went from 63 cents to 66 cents.
This is not the only price adjustment. Other types of mail will also increase in cost next year. Metered one-ounce letters are rising by a penny, from 63 cents to 64 cents.
If you want to send a postcard anywhere in the U.S., it’ll cost you another two pennies—from 51 cents to 53 cents.
It’s five cents more to mail postcards or one-ounce letters outside the States. Starting next year, it’ll increase from $1.50 to $1.55. The future increase is the fifth time USPS has raised the rates since the start of 2019, when a first-class domestic stamp cost 50 cents.
USPS has lowered stamp prices only twice: once in the mid-19th century, when the price went down from three cents to two cents, and after World War I.
According to the USPS website, the price increases are the aftermath of inflation on the USPS operating costs and a previously defective pricing model. Unlike other federal agencies, USPS is not funded by federal dollars. It is an independently funded operation. The mail delivery serves nearly 165 million addresses six days a week.
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