Junk Mail Statistics: U.S. Marketing Mail

U.S. Marketing Mail in 2025

• 56.8 billion pieces: USPS reports 56.756 billion Marketing Mail pieces in fiscal 2025.
• 4.05 billion pounds: the same annual report lists 4.050 billion pounds of Marketing Mail.
• About 1.14 ounces per piece: Junk Mail Magic calculated this by dividing the reported weight by the reported piece count.
• Down 1.3% year over year: USPS reports a decline of 764 million pieces from fiscal 2024.

Sources: the USPS Marketing Mail volume fact and the USPS fiscal 2025 Annual Report to Congress. USPS figures use its fiscal year, which ended September 30, 2025.

Ten years of Marketing Mail volume

USPS Marketing Mail volume fell from 80.9 billion pieces in 2016 to 56.8 billion in 2025. That is a 29.8% decline based on the rounded annual figures published by USPS.

The annual series comes from the USPS decade of facts and figures. These values are rounded to the nearest tenth of a billion, so the percentage above is also rounded.

Download the ten-year table as CSV. The file contains the fiscal year, rounded piece volume in billions, and the USPS source URL.

What the EPA waste estimate says

The EPA estimates that marketing mail accounted for 3.67 million tons, or 1.3% of U.S. municipal solid waste generation, in 2018. Its category includes catalogs and other direct bulk mailings.

This is the latest year in the EPA's published product table. It should not be presented as a 2025 estimate. The EPA number measures material entering the municipal waste stream, while USPS reports postal volume and weight. The methods and years differ, so the two figures should not be combined.

Source: EPA nondurable goods product data.

What these numbers do not prove

• They do not show how many pieces recipients considered junk.
• They do not show how many individual households received Marketing Mail.
• They do not measure whether one opt-out request stopped future mail.
• They do not justify converting Marketing Mail volume into trees or carbon emissions without a separate, documented life-cycle method.

Use the category accurately: cite USPS Marketing Mail when using the postal figures. Use junk mail only when describing unwanted mail from the recipient's point of view.

How to use this page

You may cite the figures with a link to this page and the original agency source. For practical steps, use our U.S. junk mail opt-out guide. It separates catalogs, prescreened credit offers, Current Resident mail, political mail, and other categories because no single opt-out covers all of them.