Effective October 11, 2018, the Postal Service™ is revising Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®), to remove all references to the POSTNET barcode.
The Postal Service will continue to process mailpieces with a POSTNET barcode to accommodate customers who may have preprinted stock bearing a POSTNET barcode.
Although the Postal Service will publish these revisions in the DMM at a later date, the standards are effective immediately.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
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200 Commercial Mail Letters, Cards, Flats, and Parcels
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202 Elements on the Face of a Mailpiece
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5.0 Barcode Placement Letters and Flats
5.1 Letter-Size
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5.1.4 Additional Barcode Permissibility
[Revise the text of 5.1.4 to read as follows:]
An automation letter or a letter claimed at Enhanced Carrier Route saturation or high density automation letter prices may not bear a 5-digit or ZIP+4 Intelligent Mail barcode in the lower right corner (barcode clear zone). The piece may bear an additional Intelligent Mail barcode in the address block only if a qualifying Intelligent Mail barcode with a delivery point routing code appears in the lower right corner.
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5.2 Flat-Size
5.2.1 Barcode Placement for Flats
[Revise the fourth and fifth sentence of 5.2.1 to read as follows:]
***Intelligent Mail barcodes are subject to the standards in 204.1.2.2. An additional Intelligent Mail barcode may also appear in the address block of an automation flat, when the qualifying Intelligent Mail barcode is not in the address block.***
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6.0 Barcode Placement for Parcels
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[Revise the title and text of 6.3 to read as follows:]
6.3 Intelligent Mail Barcodes
Intelligent Mail barcodes (IMb) do not meet barcode eligibility requirements for parcels and do not qualify for any barcode-related prices for parcels. One barcode may be included only in the address block on a parcel, except on eVS parcels. An Intelligent Mail barcode in the address block must be placed according to 5.3.
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8.0 Facing Identification Mark (FIM)
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8.2 Pattern
[Revise the third sentence in the introductory text of 8.2 to read as follows:]
***The required FIM pattern as shown in Exhibit 8.2 depends on the type of mail and the presence of an Intelligent Mail barcode as follows:
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204 Barcode Standards
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[Revise the title of 1.0 to read as follows:]
1.0 Standards for Intelligent Mail Barcodes
1.1 General
[Revise the text of 1.1 to read as follows:]
An Intelligent Mail barcode is a USPS-developed method to encode ZIP Code information on mail that can be read for sorting by automated machines. Intelligent Mail barcodes also encode other tracking information.
[Delete 1.2, POSTNET Barcode, in its entirety, including 1.2.1 through 1.2.5, and renumber current 1.3 through 1.6 as new 1.2 through 1.5, respectively.]
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500 Additional Mailing Services
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507 Mailer Services
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4.0 Address Correction Services
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4.2 Address Change Service (ACS)
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4.2.6 Additional Standards — When Using Intelligent Mail Barcodes
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[Revise the text of item b. to read as follows:]
b. Flat-size mailpieces may be mailed at nonautomation or automation prices.
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[Revise the text of item e. to read as follows:]
e. The Intelligent Mail barcode must meet the technical specifications as described in 204.1.2 and USPS specification USPS-B-3200.
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600 Basic Standards For All Mailing Services
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604 Postage Payment Methods and Refunds
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4.0 Postage Meters and PC Postage Products (“Postage Evidencing Systems”)
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4.3 Postage Payment
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4.3.3 Placement of Postage
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[Revise the text of item e. to read as follows:]
e. Do not allow the indicia to infringe on the areas reserved for the FIM, Intelligent Mail barcode, or optical character reader (OCR) clear zone.
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Index and Appendices
Index
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P
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[Delete the “POSTNET barcode” line item in the Index.]
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The Postal Service will incorporate these revisions into the next online update of the DMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at pe.usps.com.
— Product Classification, Marketing, 10-11-18
