Effective January 18, 2009, the Postal Service™ is revising the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) 113, 123, 413, 423, 503, 507, 601, 703, 705, and 707.3 to reflect a request from the Department of State to distinguish diplomatic overseas mail from military mail.
A Diplomatic Post Office (DPO) is a designated USPS® civilian Post Office™ that falls under the jurisdiction of the postmaster of either New York City or San Francisco. These facilities are operated and managed by the Department of State to serve overseas personnel at American embassies and consulates. DPO is the preferred name for mail addressed to Department of State overseas offices.
Customers shipping items to a DPO address in a Priority Mail® large flat-rate box will pay the same price for the Priority Mail large flat-rate box as for a box shipped to an APO/FPO address.
With this change, DPO last line address information must contain the DPO designation and the appropriate two-letter state abbreviation (AA, AE, or AP), followed by the ZIP+4® or 5-digit ZIP™ Code.
We will incorporate these revisions into the next printed version of the DMM and into the monthly update of the online DMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Mailing Standards,
Pricing, 1-15-09