What You Can & Cannot Send

The most common things you can send and how to package them for shipping without breaking the rules.

What you will never, ever be able to mail. Trying to mail these things can get you in quite a lot of trouble!

Nothing lasts forever, especially food. Perishables are a great thing in the holiday season or during the height of the harvest season. We all want to send things to those we love, but there are some rules that you must observe first. Read on to see what to do…

These are items that can only be sent between authorized parties or under special conditions. These often require permits and special paperwork. Sometimes the contents of these parcels cannot be marked on the outside.

The day-to-day concern with accepting parcels is that they must be packaged well enough to protect their contents and strong enough to prevent the package from breaking and causing injury to employees or damage to other mail. Most people send normal items: documents, clothing, toys, etc. There are times when questions might arise about what can be sent and how.

Many of the types of items listed below are simply non-mailable, period. However, if an item is an ORM-D (Other Regulated Material- Domestic) this signifies that it poses a limited hazard because of its quantity and packaging. ORM-D materials are given the shipping name “Consumer Commodity” and may be mailed domestically but in extremely limited quantities and with special approval, labeling and packaging.