What “Departed USPS Regional Facility” means

What does “Departed USPS Regional Facility” mean?

It means the package was sorted at a regional plant and loaded onto a truck or a plane bound for the next stop. USPS's tracking help groups Departed USPS Facility with Arrived at USPS Facility and In Transit, and says the package "is currently being processed or transported to your delivering Post Office." The next stop is either another plant or, near the end of the trip, the post office whose carriers deliver to the address.

Why doesn't my letter show a departed scan?

A letter's tracking comes only from sorting machines reading its barcode, and nothing reads a letter as it is loaded onto a truck. USPS reports each time a machine processes the letter, with the plant and the time, so a letter's history is a list of plants rather than arrivals and departures. When a new plant shows up in the list, the letter has left the one before it.

PigeonTrail puts each of those plants on a map of the letter's route, so you can see it move across the country without a departure scan. The guide to USPS letter scans walks through a real letter from Austin to Columbus.

How long after departed will the next scan come?

The next scan comes when the item reaches its next stop and is unloaded and sorted there, which is usually within a day. A cross country leg can take longer, and USPS's own rule for First Class Mail counts the drive time between plants when it sets a letter's delivery days: up to 7 hours of driving gives 2 days, and more than 45 hours gives 5. A package that departs a plant near the end of its trip often shows Arrived at Post Office or Out for Delivery next.

What should you do if tracking stops after departed?

Give it until a day past the expected delivery date, because the time between a departure and the next arrival is the longest quiet stretch in most trips. If the date passes with nothing new, USPS's route for a package is a Missing Mail search with the tracking number. For a letter, our delivery time tool shows the date USPS expects it, and PigeonTrail starts calling a letter behind a day after that date.