USPS Delivers Nearly Half of All Mail on Earth

When you drop a letter in the mailbox or receive a package on your doorstep, you're participating in the world's largest mail operation. The United States Postal Service processes and delivers 44% of the planet's entire mail volume—nearly half of every letter, postcard, and package sent anywhere on Earth.

A Global Postal Giant

In fiscal year 2024, USPS delivered 112 billion pieces of mail. To put that in perspective, if every piece of mail were a step, you could walk to the sun and back 375 times. This massive volume makes the United States the world's largest market for mail, dwarfing the postal operations of entire continents.

No other country comes close. While China leads the world in parcel volume with 111 billion packages in 2022, the USPS dominates total mail volume when you include letters, magazines, bills, and promotional mail—the traditional backbone of postal services.

Why Does America Mail So Much?

Several factors contribute to USPS's outsized global share:

• Population and geography: The U.S. has 335 million people spread across 3.8 million square miles, requiring an extensive delivery network
• Business mail dominance: American companies send massive volumes of bills, statements, advertisements, and catalogs—much more than consumer countries
• Universal service obligation: USPS must deliver to every address in America, including remote areas where private carriers won't go
• E-commerce boom: While letters decline globally, package delivery has exploded, and USPS handles last-mile delivery for Amazon and other giants

The Numbers Behind the Network

Supporting this colossal mail volume requires equally impressive infrastructure. USPS operates over 30,000 post offices, employs nearly 650,000 workers, and maintains one of the world's largest civilian vehicle fleets with more than 220,000 cars and trucks. Mail carriers travel 1.4 billion miles annually—enough to make nearly 3,000 round trips to the moon.

Every day, rain or shine, USPS delivers to 165 million addresses across all 50 states, U.S. territories, and military posts worldwide. That's roughly 98% of the U.S. population receiving mail service within three days.

While global letter mail volume has declined in the digital age—down in nearly every country since 2016—the USPS's share of what remains is staggering. It's a testament to American consumer culture, business practices, and the sheer logistical achievement of connecting a vast, diverse nation through a single postal network.