How long does mail take from Washington, DC?

How long does mail take from Washington, DC to each state?

The map shades each state by the number of days USPS most often gives a First Class letter from Washington, DC, and the table under it gives the usual range for every state, so you can read off a trip like Washington, DC to California at a glance.

How long does a letter take within Washington, DC?

USPS's directory gives 2 days to every one of the letters that start and end in Washington, DC. No ZIP code in Washington, DC is on USPS's list of origins that get an extra day for being far from their sorting plant, so the 3 digit ZIP area alone sets the days for letters mailed there.

Which states get mail from Washington, DC fastest?

USPS most often gives 3 days or fewer to letters from Washington, DC bound for 32 other states, led by New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Virginia. To New York, 100 percent of letters have a standard of 3 days or less.

Which states take the longest from Washington, DC?

USPS gives 5 days to most letters from Washington, DC going to 8 states, including California and Washington. A letter on one of these trips that goes out with Monday's pickup is due on Saturday, or a day later when a holiday falls in the week.

How much of the country is within 3 days of Washington, DC?

If you sent one letter from Washington, DC to every person in the country, the city included, USPS would give 61 percent of them a standard of 3 days or less. That ranks Washington, DC 1st of the 50 states and DC, and the state in the middle of that list is at 22 percent.

How do I find the exact days for one letter?

Each range on this page covers many ZIP codes, and one letter has a single number. For example, USPS gives a letter from ZIP 20002 in Washington, DC to ZIP 92336 in California 5 days. Our delivery time tool shows that number for any two ZIP codes and counts it out on the calendar, skipping Sundays and holidays.

How were these days worked out?

The days come from USPS's own service standard directory for First Class Mail, effective October 1, 2026, which we download from USPS's Service Standards Files API. It gives the days from every 3 digit ZIP area to every other, plus the 5 digit ZIP codes whose letters get a different number. For Washington, DC we took each of its 30 populated ZIP codes as a starting point and each 3 digit ZIP area of the destination state as an end point, and weighted every pair by the people who live at both ends, using the Census Bureau's 2023 population counts. "Usually" is the range that covers the middle 8 of every 10 letters, and "most often" is the single most common number.

A service standard is USPS's target for a stamped letter mailed before the day's last pickup, and First Class Mail has no delivery guarantee. Sundays and the 11 federal holidays USPS observes don't count as delivery days.