How to Fill Out USPS Form 4240: Times, Mileage, and RRECS

To fill out USPS Form 4240, the Rural Carrier Trip Report, verify the pre-printed header at the start of each pay period, then record your exact reporting, departure, return, and completion times in ink every workday, along with lunch minutes, daily mileage, and any deviations from your route. Sign the certification line at the end of the pay period so your postmaster can transfer the data to PS Form 1314 (or 1314-A) and enter it into the Time and Attendance Collection System for payroll.

Check the Header Before Day One

Your local post office pre-prints most of the header, but confirm every field on the first day of the pay period. Errors here follow you through every paycheck calculation.

Post Office, State, and ZIP+4 for the facility where you case and depart.
Route number, length in miles, and classification (L, Non-L, M, H, J, K, or Aux).
Your full legal name and EIN, plus a separate line for the regular relief carrier’s name and EIN.
Pay period “From” and “Thru” dates.
Evaluated weekly and daily hours for the route. This is the baseline the Postal Service measures your actual performance against.

If a Rural Carrier Associate or other relief carrier will cover part of the period, their name belongs on the relief carrier line. Payroll information for both the regular carrier and any replacement is transferred from the same Form 4240 at pay period close.¹

Recording Daily Times in the Grid

The daily grid runs across 12 numbered columns, one row per workday. Fill it in ink as the day unfolds, not from memory afterward. Handbook PO-603 requires you to record “the exact time of reporting, leaving, returning to the office, and completion of duties” daily on the form, and states that no other time record is required.²

Column 1, Day of Week: usually pre-printed.
Column 2, Date: the calendar date.
Column 3, Reported at Post Office: the clock time you arrived and began your compensable shift.
Column 4, Left Office to Serve Route: the time you left the facility to begin deliveries.
Column 5, Returned to Post Office: the time you pulled back in after street delivery. This entry must be in ink.
Column 6, Completed Work at Post Office: when you finished scanning, accountables, and any afternoon casing.
Column 7, Lunch Period: total lunch minutes for the day, blank if you took none.
Column 8, Actual Time: total elapsed work time less lunch.
Column 9, Total Actual Daily Hours and Hundredths (Less Lunch): the same figure converted to decimal hours.
Column 10, Daily Overtime: hours beyond the daily threshold that qualify as overtime.
Columns 11 and 12, Weekly Work Hours: cumulative weekly totals for the relief carrier and regular carrier.

Record times in hours and minutes exactly as they happen. Your manager initials each day’s row to verify the entries.

Logging Lunch

You are authorized up to 30 minutes for lunch, and during it you must protect the mail and any postal equipment in your vehicle. You can take the 30 minutes as one break or split it into segments in the office or on the route, but keep roughly the same schedule daily so your return time is predictable. Coffee breaks away from your case count against the 30-minute allotment and get recorded in the lunch column.²

Any deviation from the authorized line of travel for lunch, such as stopping at a restaurant off-route, needs advance approval from your postmaster or supervisor. Record actual time for every lunch segment even if short. Skipped lunch means Column 7 stays blank for that day.

Mileage and When to Explain a Deviation

Your daily mileage should match the route length printed in the header. When it does not, because a road washed out, a bridge is closed, or you had to backtrack for a misdelivery, explain it in Remarks. Handbook PO-603 requires that “any deviation from the official route mileage, and/or the reasons for any delay, must be explained under the Remarks section.”²

Be specific. “Bridge closed on County Rd 12, detoured via Hwy 9, added 3.2 miles” tells a supervisor or auditor exactly what happened. “Road issue” invites questions you may not remember the answer to weeks later.

Documenting Special Circumstances

Auxiliary Assistance

When another employee helps finish your route, note the assisting carrier’s name, the time they worked, and any mileage they drove in Remarks. During a mail count period, auxiliary assistance time is tracked separately in hours and hundredths so it feeds into the route evaluation.²

Relief Carriers Covering Your Absence

Your leave replacement uses the same Form 4240 assigned to your route. They enter their own name in the Remarks column and record their times on that form. At pay period end, the postmaster splits the data: your hours go to PS Form 1314, and the replacement’s hours go to PS Form 1314-A.¹ The relief carrier does not open a separate 4240 for the same route.

Second Trips

If a late dispatch or heavy volume sends you back out, document it on that same day’s entry. Under RRECS, carriers perform start load and end load scans on the Mobile Delivery Device for a second trip, and the added mileage goes on the form and qualifies for EMA at the standard per-mile rate.

Breakdowns and Weather

Mechanical breakdowns, severe weather delays, or anything that shifts your schedule belong in Remarks with the duration and the effect on your return time. If weather makes the route unservable after you have already reported to the post office, no salary or EMA deduction applies, but the day still needs a written explanation.

Equipment Maintenance Allowance

If you use your personal vehicle on your route, EMA is authorized automatically for each service day. There is no separate vehicle code to enter on the form.²

Effective April 4, 2026 (pay period 09-26), the standard EMA rate is 95.0 cents per mile or a minimum of $38.00 per day, whichever is greater. Auxiliary carriers, Rural Carrier Associates, and anyone providing auxiliary assistance receive 95.0 cents per mile or $10.10 per hour, whichever is greater, capped at the special EMA amount for the route’s stops and miles.³ EMA is lost for any day a government vehicle is used on your route, even on a test or emergency basis. If you fail to serve part of the route due to lack of proper effort or equipment, the Postal Service deducts from your salary or EMA at the per-mile rate.

Closing the Pay Period

At the end of each day your manager initials the row. At pay period close, sign and date the certification line at the bottom. Your postmaster or designated supervisor reviews the form for mathematical errors, signs it, and authorizes the data for payroll.¹

Turn it in on time. If the form is not ready on the last day of the pay period, your supervisor cannot transfer the data to the time certificates or enter it into TACS, and your paycheck is delayed. Legibility matters for the same reason. A supervisor who cannot read your handwriting either calls you back to clarify or estimates, and estimates do not always favor the carrier.

Does RRECS Replace the 4240?

No. Under RRECS, each route is credited with 0.491 minutes per day specifically for completing Form 4240, and the form remains a required end-of-shift activity.⁴ GPS and Mobile Delivery Device data changed how route evaluations are built, but daily timekeeping still lives on the 4240.

Falsifying the Form

Recording times you did not actually work is not just a policy violation. USPS Employee and Labor Relations Manual Section 660 identifies three federal statutes that apply to postal employees who submit fraudulent timekeeping documents.⁵

False statements under 18 U.S.C. § 1001 carry a fine and up to five years in prison for a materially false statement in any matter within federal jurisdiction.⁶
Falsification of postal returns under 18 U.S.C. § 1712, which covers trip reports, carries a fine and up to two years in prison.⁷
Destruction of records under 18 U.S.C. § 2071 is a separate offense for destroying or mutilating a public record.

OIG inspectors audit rural timekeeping regularly, and scanner GPS data now sits alongside your handwritten entries. Patterns of inflated hours or mismatched mileage surface quickly. The more common outcome is removal, but criminal exposure has been used.

1
National Association of Letter Carriers. Handbook F-21 – Time and Attendance
2
United States Postal Service. Handbook PO-603 – Rural Carrier Duties and Responsibilities
3
United States Postal Service. Equipment Maintenance Allowance Schedule for Rural Routes
4
National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association. Comprehensive Guide to the Rural Route Evaluated Compensation System (RRECS)
5
United States Postal Service. 660 Conduct
6
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 U.S. Code 1001 – Statements or Entries Generally
7
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1712 – Falsification of Postal Returns