USPS Hold for Pickup: How It Works

USPS Hold for Pickup is one of those services that almost nobody uses despite being completely free and genuinely useful. It lets you have a package held at your local post office instead of being delivered to your door. You pick it up whenever you want during business hours. No porch pirates, no missed deliveries, no notes stuck to your door saying they will try again tomorrow.

If you work during the day, live in an apartment without a secure mail room, or have had packages stolen from your porch, Hold for Pickup solves a real problem at zero cost.

How It Works for Incoming Packages

When someone ships a package to you via USPS, you can request that it be held at a specific post office rather than delivered to your address. You need the tracking number, which the sender or the shipping notification email provides.

Go to USPS.com, open the USPS mobile app, or call 1-800-ASK-USPS. Enter the tracking number and request a hold at your preferred post office location. USPS reroutes the package to that location, and once it arrives, you get a notification. Walk in with a government-issued photo ID that matches the name on the package, and they hand it over.

The timing matters. You need to submit the hold request before the package goes out for delivery. If the carrier has already loaded it onto the truck for your route, the request may not process in time and the package will be delivered normally. Submitting the request a day before expected delivery is the safe approach.

You can request holds at any post office, not just your local one. If you are traveling and know a package is arriving while you are in another city, you can have it held at a post office near where you are staying. This is also useful for people who live in rural areas where their local post office is closer than the address where mail delivery occurs.

How It Works for Senders

If you are the shipper, you can create a label that directs the package to a specific post office for the recipient to pick up, rather than delivering to their home address. This is useful when you know the recipient is not home during delivery hours, when the delivery address has a history of theft, or when the recipient specifically asks for post office pickup.

To set this up, use the destination post office's street address as the delivery address on the label, with the recipient's name and a note indicating it is a Hold for Pickup shipment. Some shipping platforms support this directly in their label creation workflow, tagging the shipment appropriately so USPS knows to hold it rather than attempt delivery to the post office's address as a regular delivery.

How Long They Hold Your Package

USPS holds packages for 15 calendar days from the date of arrival at the post office. If you do not pick it up within that window, the package is returned to the sender. There is no extension available — 15 days is the hard limit.

For most situations, 15 days is more than enough time. But if you are on an extended trip and cannot get to a post office within two weeks, you need to either have the package sent to where you will be or ask the sender to delay shipping until you are available to pick it up.

The hold period applies per package. If you have three packages held at the same post office, each one has its own 15-day clock starting from when it individually arrived. You do not need to pick them all up at once.

What You Need to Pick Up

Bring a valid government-issued photo ID — a driver's license, state ID, passport, or military ID. The name on the ID must match the name on the package. If someone else is picking up on your behalf, they need their own ID plus written authorization from you (a signed letter stating that you authorize them to pick up the package, including your name, their name, and the tracking number).

Go to the service counter, not the automated kiosk. Tell the clerk you are picking up a held package and provide your tracking number if you have it. The clerk will verify your ID, retrieve the package from the back, and have you sign for it.

Post office wait times vary by location and time of day. Avoid the lunch rush (11:30 AM to 1:30 PM) and the after-work rush (4:30 to 6:00 PM) if possible. Saturday mornings tend to be the busiest overall. Going early in the morning on a weekday is usually the fastest option.

Hold for Pickup vs Hold Mail vs Package Intercept

USPS offers several services that sound similar but do different things, and confusing them is a common mistake.

Hold for Pickup applies to a specific package. You request that one particular package be held at a post office. Your regular mail delivery continues normally.

Hold Mail is a blanket service that stops all mail delivery to your address for a specified period (up to 30 days). Everything — letters, packages, magazines — gets held at your local post office until you pick it up or resume delivery. This is what you use when you go on vacation and do not want mail piling up in your mailbox.

Package Intercept is a paid service (roughly 16 to 28 dollars) that lets you redirect a package that is already in transit. If you shipped something to the wrong address or the buyer cancelled their order after you shipped, Package Intercept attempts to catch the package before delivery and redirect it or return it to you. It is not guaranteed to work — if the package has already been delivered, the intercept cannot undo that.

For E-commerce Sellers

Hold for Pickup can reduce failed delivery attempts and the associated costs. If you know a customer has difficulty receiving packages — they have mentioned it in order notes, or previous deliveries to their address have had issues — offering Hold for Pickup as an option can prevent the frustration of missed deliveries and reduce customer service tickets about lost or stolen packages.

Some shipping platforms, including atoship, support Hold for Pickup as a delivery option that can be selected during label creation. This lets you offer post office pickup as a choice at checkout or configure it for specific addresses where delivery has historically been problematic.

The service is particularly valuable for high-value shipments where the cost of a lost or stolen package exceeds the minor inconvenience of picking it up. A 200-dollar product stolen from a porch is a 200-dollar loss plus the cost of the replacement shipment. Having the customer pick it up at the post office costs nothing and eliminates the risk entirely.