As has been the custom in recent years Royal Mail has published a new Tariff leaflet which is effective from 5 October 2026. And as was the case last year, it is generally good news for consumers and collectors with most prices unchanged from those published in April. It can be downloaded from their website now. (Thanks to JohnH for alerting me to this new publication.)
Standard letter and Signed For Letter and Large Letter rates are unchanged. There are small rises for parcels, with the basic small parcel rising from £5.45 to £5.90 for 1st class and from £4.25 to £4.60 for 2nd class. There are similar rises for Signed For parcels.
There are rises in the Tracked 24 and Tracked 48 services often used by online marketplace sellers, who don't want to worry about using stamps for postage. These remain cheaper than the Signed For service for Large Letters (the first weight step is up to 750 g) but a Signed For basic Letter is still slightly cheaper. Whether it is also value for money is up to the user to decide.
The basic Special Delivery service is up from £9.95 to £10.55 for letters up to 100g, and from £10.94 to £11.35 for up to 500g. There are also increases in the premium SD service such as Saturday Guarantee, an the weekday 9am service rises from £53,95 to £58.95 - expensive, but nationwide, so cheaper than flying it yourself and possibly even cheaper than driving at today's diesel prices!
International Mails
Letter and Large Letter prices for all services are unchanged: International Tracked, International Tracked & Signed, Standard (Airmail) and Economy (ostensibly surface). This means that 2 x 1st class stamps still provide the exact postage needed for a standard airmail letter or postcard.
Like; I expect, other readers; I read this blog for interest and had forgotten that Royal Mail often alters prices in autumn so have packed up a complicated large parcel and sent it from the nearest Post Office. As usual I had not got the stamps quite right, so am grateful that Norphil has warned us in time before the tinkering with prices has yet kicked in. I saw no leaflets there so the explanation of the changes here is most useful. Thank you. A pity that the opportunity was not takes to lessen the price of 2nd class stamps by a penny so 2 of them would make a letter into 1st class for when you had forgotten when your Dad's birthday was. Or 4 for a postcard abroad: although fitting 4 stamps on a postcard of the Gorbals can be tricky...
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