News item | 19-12-2025 | 3:00 PM
The government is expanding the delivery time of mail to a maximum of 48 hours (as of July 1, 2026) and then to 72 hours (as of July 1, 2027). These are the necessary first steps towards a well-functioning postal market again. The Dutch value reliable postal delivery. That you know on what day a letter will arrive when you put it on the bus. At the same time, we are sending fewer and fewer letters and cards, -54% since 2014. This puts pressure on reliability and affordability. Adjustments are therefore necessary to ensure that postal services do not deteriorate further.
At the proposal of Minister Karremans of Economic Affairs, the Council of Ministers has agreed to send this amendment to the Postal Decree – an Order in Council (AMvB) – to the House of Representatives. This change, announced earlier in October, has been publicly consulted in recent weeks.
Minister Karremans: “We are sending fewer and fewer letters and cards. The Dutch also value reliable and affordable postal delivery. The current rules do not fit in with this and doing nothing will lead to further decline. I also cannot ask a company to carry out this task at a loss in the long run. In short, adjustments are desperately needed and I am expanding the rules for delivery times slightly.”
What will change in 2026 and 2027?
From July 1, 2026: letters must be delivered within two days. If you put a letter in the mail on Monday, it will be delivered on Tuesday or Wednesday.
From July 1, 2027: this will be within three days. So a letter from Monday can be delivered on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
The mail still arrives five days a week: Tuesday to Saturday. Nothing will change for funeral mail and medical mail: they will still be delivered within 24 hours and six days a week.
Why this change?
Because we send less mail, costs increase and reliability is jeopardized. Research by the supervisory authority (ACM) shows that simply expanding from one day to two days (2026) is not enough to solve this. With a period of three days (2027), the postal service can remain affordable and reliable. This way, senders and users already know where they stand in the coming years.
Other countries have already preceded the Netherlands in this. In Germany, for example, the new standard delivery time for mail has been three or four days since this year. In Denmark this has even been completely abandoned. In Belgium the cheapest (standard) delivery is also 72 hours. Delivery within 24 hours is still possible, but only at a twice higher price.
PostNL’s requests for government subsidy and withdrawal of designation rejected
By extending the delivery time, it is not necessary to provide government subsidies to PostNL as the operator of the postal service. PostNL has objected to this and also requested that the instruction that they must deliver mail be withdrawn. The cabinet has rejected both of these because of the measures taken today in the amended Postal Decree.