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Royal Mail's postbox network - your questions answered
How many postboxes are there?
Royal Mail has around 115,000 postboxes across the UK.
When does mail get collected from postboxes?
Please find details of our collection times here.
I have noticed that my local postbox is now being collected by a postman or woman on their rounds. Why is this happening?
A significant decline in letter volumes means that many post boxes no longer cover their costs and contain very few items of mail, meaning collecting from these boxes is not efficient.
Rather than decommission uneconomic low-use post boxes, since 2014 we have been improving the efficiency of our collections arrangements by using our Collection on Delivery initiative. This means the mail collection from these postboxes will be carried out by the local postman or woman on their delivery route, at a time dependent on where the box is located on that route. This will typically be between 9am and 3pm in urban and suburban areas on Monday to Friday, and no earlier than 7am on a Saturday.
Later timed postboxes are normally located at Post Offices, our Royal Mail offices and associated with Parcel Boxes. These are typically collected from 4pm* on weekdays. Details of these postboxes can be found on our Services near You tool.
*some earlier final collection exemptions do apply.
How do I know if the post has already been collected?
If you've missed the collection for that day, there will be a sign on the postbox letting you know where the nearest late collection box is.
Alternatively, you can visit our Services near You tool where you can search for local boxes and use the filter to see those which still have collections today.
1. Click the Filters option
2. Filter by Collection time and click Apply.
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