Military personnel serving overseas rely on receiving letters and packages to keep them informed about their loved ones, friends, and family back home. Many individuals, groups, and organizations conduct drives to obtain various products to send to the military. Usually, there is no trouble in obtaining the items; people are willing to show their appreciation to our dedicated military personnel by supplying the items requested. But when it comes to paying for the postage to get the items overseas, they run into problems.

It is costly to send packages overseas and questions arise as to why the government doesn’t provide special rates (or free postage) for these packages. Under certain circumstances, the overseas military personnel have free mail privileges when sending correspondence back home. The United States Postal Service is an independent establishment of the Executive Branch of the United States Government. It operates in a businesslike way. The U.S. Postal Service receives no tax dollars from the federal government for its operations. It is a self-supporting agency, using the revenue from the sales of postage and postage-related products to pay expenses. While free postage isn’t available for sending to overseas military personnel, some mail being sent back to the United States from military personnel is free. Service members are briefed on the free mail procedures when they are deployed to a free mail area.

Currently, most areas of the Middle East have been authorized free mail for personal correspondence being sent from the service member overseas back to the States. Matter that may be mailed free of postage by these military personnel is restricted to letters, postcards, and recorded communications (whether sound or video) with the character of personal correspondence. Family members sending mail to service members in a free mail zone must pay for postage. The free mailing privilege may be used only by members of the U.S. Armed Forces on active duty who are either (a) assigned to military duty in a certain overseas area, as designated by the President or designee, and who mail the matter at an Armed Forces Post Office in that area; or (b) hospitalized in a facility under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Armed Forces because of disease or injury from military service in an overseas area, as designed by the President or designee. The definition of overseas areas is administered by the Military Postal Service Agency, which periodically provides the USPS with a listing of current overseas areas.