Effective December 7, 2017, the Postal Service™ is revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM®) to add a new subchapter 790 titled “International Inbound Mail Entry.”
Recently, shipments of foreign inbound items to the 48 contiguous states have been entered in isolated locations that are not capable of the following:
n Processing the items timely.
n Airlifting the items due to lack of adequate air cargo space.
This has affected the timeliness of delivery and added cost to the processing streams. Therefore, we are limiting the inbound drop locations to the five international service centers unless the Postal Service and the mailer have a contract or bilateral agreement designating an alternate location.
Simultaneously, we are also revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) to include this information (see “DMM Revision: International Inbound Mail Entry” in this issue of the Postal Bulletin).
Although effective immediately, we will not publish this revision in the online IMM until the next update.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM)
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7 Treatment of Inbound Mail
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[Add a new subchapter 790 to read as follows:]
790 International Inbound Mail Entry
Incoming mail from foreign mail consolidators or foreign posts must be entered through one of the five international service centers located in the 48 contiguous states. Mailers must arrange exceptions in advance for entry anywhere else, including into domestic offshore locations, through contracts or bilateral agreements with the Postal Service.
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Although effective December 7, 2017, we will incorporate this revision into the next update of the online IMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification, Marketing, 12-7-17
