Does it matter whether PostNL will deliver your letter or card within 24 hours, as it is mandatory now? Or can the mail deliverer also do that within 48 hours, as outgoing minister Vincent Karremans (Economic Affairs, VVD) suggested on Monday?
That of course depends on the type of mail. That postcard of the campsite may certainly be delivered two days after sending (D+2in postjargon). Or even D+3as Karremans is considering per 2028. And D+still Will also satisfy the blue tax envelope for most people.
But a traffic fine or judgment of the court may not fall too late, otherwise the period may be exceeded to appeal. Most people don’t want to miss a payment reminder of the water board or taxes either.
Since 2019, PostNL has not succeeded in delivering it within 24 hours; Last year only 86 percent was delivered on time
The latter examples come from the National Ombudsman. In March, Reinier van Zutphen raised the alarm about the reliability of mail delivery. The reason was complaints from citizens who were seriously in trouble due to not or not received too late.
The Ombudsman called on governments to treat such complaints with patience and “in a considerable way”. “Conversations with governments and implementing organizations,” Van Zutphen said this week, “it appears that they too now realize that mail delivery no longer offers the reliability of the past.” Fortunately, the cabinet now takes the problems seriously, according to the Ombudsman.
‘Universal postal service’
Karremans presented this week’s long -awaited postal plans of the cabinet. That is the emphasis on the reliability of PostNL. The listed postal and parcel company must now deliver 95 percent of the consumer post within 24 hours, as part of the ‘Universal Postal Service’ (UPD). Since 2019, PostNL does not achieve that standard due to staff shortage and absenteeism. Last year 86 percent were on time.
That UPD is strictly regulated: the Postal Act 2009 states that consumer post must be collected and delivered five days a week (Tuesday-Saturday). Six days applies to mourning cards and medical posts. Furthermore, delivery must have national coverage and therefore there is that standard of 95 percent. But: the rules only apply to consumer post, not for business mail. Nothing has been regulated by law for really important business mail.
PostNL has been arguing for years for the revision of the Postal Act. People send less and less paper mail. “We are asked to maintain a network that no longer fits in with today’s use,” said Pim Berendsen of PostNL Monday. He wants a subsidy (68 million euros for 2025 and 2026), because according to EU law, the government should not force a company to perform a public service with losses.
On Monday, Karremans announced that he is meeting PostNL. He gives the company an extra day for the delivery of letters and cards. That must start on July 1, 2026. And later may D+3 So possibly too. His predecessor Dirk Beljaarts (PVV) already wanted to grant the wishes of PostNL in October, but the room then whistled him back.
Van Karremans, however, must be 95 percent delivery security, preferably for all posts. Furthermore, he seems to want to release the stamp price, just like the prices for business letters are already. PostNL could determine those rates itself, provided that it does not achieve more than a legally determined maximum return (9 percent). But no more than Beljaarts wants to support Karremans PostNL financially. If the rules become more spacious and the prices free, does PostNL have to be able to get the standard simpler?
No, says PostNL. The company called the cabinet plans on Monday ‘insufficient’ and goes to court for the rejection of the subsidy. It stated that the delivery will remain loss -making in the coming period due to high costs, also in the minister’s proposal. “We appreciate the commitment and decisiveness of this minister,” said Berendsen. “But these measures are too late, do not offer a solution to the challenges on the shrinking postal market and leave a lot uncertain.”
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‘Austerity is inevitable’
At the basis of the postal plans is a advice from the Netherlands Authority for Consumers & Markets (ACM). The supervisor presented the report ‘The post market in Transition’ on Monday. The conclusion: “Austerity of the postal service is inevitable to keep it affordable.”
The report argues for a “lower delivery speed in combination with better protection of the certainty that Post arrives at the agreed time and affordability of all types of mail”. Releasing the prices would then make PostNL the postal delivery good profitable, the ACM concludes on the basis of calculations that PostNL itself supplied,
Since the takeover of Sandd in 2019, PostNL has a de facto monopoly on the letter post in the Netherlands. As a result, when releasing the stamp price, a risk of unnecessarily high rates threatens, according to the ACM report. The supervisor suggested an ‘return ceiling’ to prevent that. PostNL would not be allowed to achieve higher gross profit margin than 9 percent (PostNL reached 1.6 percent in 2024). According to the ACM (and the minister), the current supervision of the stamp price is too complex and detailed.
Critics state that such a ceiling is at least as difficult to control as maximum prices. Professor Maarten Pieter Schinkel (Competition Economy and Regulation, UvA) says that PostNL can slide throughout the company (mail and packages) with costs to keep the margin low and to sell more expensive stamps. Schinkel: “In the book investigation of the ACM for PostNL’s takeover of Sandd, it was already found that many costs were attributed to the UPD. At least those costs also partly related to the business post and packages.”
PostNL was not the only person concerned who responded disappointed this week to Karremans’ postal plans. Publishers and printers also have major problems with PostNL’s services. The Royal Association of Graphic Enterprises (KVGO) is concerned about the “unregulated monopoly” of PostNL.
The distinction between business market and consumer post is important. Both segments differ greatly. The volume of business postal items is much greater – from magazines and direct mail to the correspondence of implementing agencies such as Tax Authorities and UWV. According to the ACM, the business post accounts for almost 95 percent of all posts in the Netherlands.
The business post also shows shrinkage. In 2019, 2.1 billion business mail items were spread in the Netherlands; In 2024 there were 1.5 billion. That contraction is not there at the tax authorities. He sent 144 million letters in 2024, 9 million more than the year before.
Business mail is therefore not regulated. In fact, the KVGO says, PostNL can do what it wants. On January 1, 2025, for example, the company deleted the 24-hour assurance for business posts. “The acquisition of Sandd has led to unilateral, hefty tariff increases of sometimes 150 to 250 percent and a shocking deterioration of the service,” says KVGO director Brecht Grieten. “The end of 24-hour assurance and the earlier delivery times undermine the current affairs value of publications, cause a lot of financial damage and damage the general social interest.”
Grieten shakes the examples in no time. Take New harvestNieuwsblad for the agricultural sector with 28,000 subscribers. The paper weekly, which brings other stories than the site, must be delivered to PostNL so early that the editors can hardly bring any more current news.
Or take the seven church magazines of the Frisian publisher Dekker Creative Media & Druk. They often only fall on the mat after Sunday with subscribers. This way readers do not know who is preaching this weekend.
Economic Affairs has the concerns of business customers of PostNL. The ministry was mainly busy with the universal postal service recently and has no concrete plans for the business post yet.
Market power
What is the most efficient way for the Netherlands to organize and finance the letter post delivery? “The government must take control and take over the private monopoly of PostNL,” says Schinkel. He already warned in 2019 that PostNL got too much market power if the company was allowed to buy the smaller competitor Sandd.
The ACM prohibited the merger, but with an obscure exception in the Competition Act, then State Secretary Mona Keijzer (Economic Affairs, then CDA) was at that time. Schinkel: “The monopoly was created because Keijzer pushed the acquisition – afterwards turned out to be illegal.” In 2022, the Board of Appeal for Business (CBB) stated that Keijzer should not have allow the merger. PostNL was still challenging ACM’s original merger ban, and a ruling is expected in that case at the end of this year. “But it was already too late,” says Schinkel. “PostNL immediately dismantled the infrastructure of Sandd.”
Schinkel has a different market order in mind. He is disappointed that ACM and Minister are not taking a phermer against competition damage. “They leave PostNL in her letter post-web like a spider.” He welcomes the rise of regional deliverers who handle mail in their own area and supporting the rest of the Netherlands on PostNL. But they need legal protection. “Anyone who wants to send letters nationwide must go through the Web of PostNL,” Schinkel warns. “PostNL may deliver letters from the regional distributors later, at higher prices, and also wants a subsidy.”
A solution, he says, would be to cut the letter post infrastructure (sorting centers, mailboxes) from PostNL. You should then nationalize that infrastructure and have to tender its use, with the universal postal service, every few years.
Denmark
Yme Pasma from delivery company Spotta is also critical of the cabinet plans. “It’s too little too late. ” Spotta is the greatest spreader and door-to-door leafs in the Netherlands since mid-2023. So hard down that something has to change. “
Pasma is “fan of Denmark.” “There the government stipulated in 2011 that all government communication must be digital. The postal market is fully privatized. Letters are only delivered by commercial parties, at higher rates, with longer delivery times.” 240,000 Danes have asked for an exception; They still receive information on paper. On a few distant islands, the Danish government still takes care of the mail.
In the Netherlands, too, Pasma sees opportunities for such a ‘wide delivery market’, in which regional postal companies and distributors such as Spotta partly take over the postal flows. According to him, it is important that obstacles disappear, such as the obligation that 80 percent of the delivery people must be employed. “Working together of regional parties is much more efficient. See how the newspaper publishers spread daily newspapers.” His favorite example is Texel: Now PostNL first brings all letters and cards from Texel to a sorting center ashore. Then the mail for Texel goes back on the boat. “That can be much more convenient.”