The USPS Enterprise Payment System is a single online account that pays for a business’s postage, permit fees, and related USPS services from one balance, funded either by ACH Debit from a bank account or by a prepaid Trust Account. You manage it through the Business Customer Gateway, and every linked permit and service draws from the same account regardless of which post office handles the mail. It replaced the older Centralized Account Processing System in 2022 and is now the only centralized payment platform USPS supports.1United States Postal Service. DMM Revision: Centralized Account Processing System Migration to Enterprise Payment System
What You Can Pay For Through EPS
Permit imprint mailings are the main reason most businesses open an EPS account. Permit imprint is the most popular payment method for high-volume mail because it lets you send thousands of pieces without applying stamps or meter strips to each one.2Postal Explorer. Business Mail 101 – Permit Imprint Beyond bulk mail, EPS covers Business Reply Mail, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage shipping, Address Quality services, PO Box fees, and Caller Service fees.
The point of consolidating all of this is straightforward. Before EPS, a company might keep separate trust deposits at several post offices for different permit types. Now one Enterprise Payment Account funds every linked permit, wherever the mail is processed, and every charge shows up in a single dashboard in real time.
How to Set Up an EPS Account
Setup runs through the Business Customer Gateway (BCG), the single sign-on portal USPS uses for its online business services, including Intelligent Mail, mailing reports, scheduling, and shipping programs.3PostalPro. Business Customer Gateway If your company doesn’t already have a BCG login, create one first.
During registration, USPS assigns your business a Customer Registration ID (CRID), a numeric code of up to 15 digits that identifies your specific business location for mailing purposes.4PostalPro. Customer Registration ID (CRID) You’ll also provide:
- Legal business name, exactly as it appears on government filings.
- Tax Identification Number, typically your EIN from the IRS.
- A physical mailing address, which the system verifies against USPS’s national address database.
- A primary administrator, one person who will hold authority over the account and delegate access to others.
Once the profile is set, you pick your funding method and enter the bank details. Double-check the routing and account numbers before submitting; an incorrect digit means restarting verification.
For ACH Debit setups, USPS confirms the bank account through two small micro-deposits that appear within two to three business days. You log back in, enter the exact amounts, and the account typically activates within 24 to 48 hours. Trust Account setups skip the micro-deposit step because you’re depositing funds rather than authorizing withdrawals, but USPS still has to process and confirm the initial deposit before the account is usable.
ACH Debit or Trust Account: Which Funding Method to Choose
The choice shapes how you manage cash flow for postage.
With ACH Debit, USPS pulls the exact postage amount from your linked bank account when a mailing processes. You don’t have to estimate a deposit in advance, and no mailing stalls because a prepaid balance ran short. The tradeoff is that the bank account must hold sufficient funds at the moment USPS initiates each withdrawal.
A Trust Account works as a prepaid balance you keep positive at all times. You can fund it through electronic transfers or by depositing checks at designated retail locations. Not every post office accepts EPS trust deposits, so check the published list on PostalPro before driving to a branch.5PostalPro. Enterprise Payment Retail Deposit Locations Wire and ACH transfer instructions for electronic funding are published separately.6PostalPro. Enterprise Payment System (EPS) Deposit Instructions
If you go with a Trust Account, set a low-balance alert in the dashboard and set the threshold generously. Running out of funds mid-mailing delays the whole job, and replenishing a trust balance isn’t instant.
Permit Fees and Auto-Renewal
EPS also handles the annual fees USPS charges commercial mailers, not just the per-piece postage. For 2026, the permit imprint application fee is $370, and annual mailing fees run $370 per 12-month period for First-Class Mail Presort, USPS Marketing Mail, and Bound Printed Matter.7United States Postal Service. 2026 Domestic Business Mailing Fees Presort-category fees apply per office of mailing.
EPS can pay these annual fees automatically from your account balance through its auto-fee renewal feature, so a forgotten renewal date doesn’t cost you an active permit. To turn it on, the user configuring the account must hold the Business Services Administrator (BSA) or BSA Delegate role in the Business Customer Gateway.8PostalPro. Pay Permit Fees and Auto-Fee Renewal Fact Sheet For operations holding permits at multiple facilities, this is worth setting up on day one.
User Roles Worth Setting Up Early
Rather than funneling everything through one login, larger organizations should assign roles with different permission levels from the start. EPS supports several:9PostalPro. Enterprise Payment System Resources
- Business Services Administrator (BSA), the top-level BCG role required to manage mailing activity and configure EPS settings like auto-fee renewal.
- BSA Delegate, which mirrors BSA capabilities so more than one person has administrative control.
- EPS Administrator, focused on payment functions like paying permit fees and managing auto-renewals.
- Payment Manager, with similar payment-level access for day-to-day fee management.
- Mail Service Provider (MSP), for a third-party mailing house that needs to check EPS balances at the permit level without full account access.
If only one person holds BSA authority and they leave the company or go on extended leave, no one else can approve payments or change settings until USPS transfers the role, which is not a fast process.
The dashboard itself shows every charge and credit across all linked permits and services in real time, and monthly statements are downloadable for accounting and tax records.
If You Had a CAPS Account
USPS retired the Centralized Account Processing System on April 1, 2022, and EPS is now the sole centralized payment platform.1United States Postal Service. DMM Revision: Centralized Account Processing System Migration to Enterprise Payment System Former CAPS account numbers were converted to a 10-digit EPS format by adding “90000” to the front of the old 5-digit number.
Historical CAPS reporting data was available through the Mailing and Shipping Solutions Center only through April 30, 2023. That window has closed, so legacy transaction records not retrieved by then are no longer accessible through USPS. For any remaining migration questions, the MSSC can be reached at 877-672-0007 or MSSC@usps.gov.
API Access for Developers
If you want to connect internal shipping or accounting software directly to EPS, USPS exposes the Payments v3 API. Every integration has to register through the USPS Customer Onboarding Platform and authenticate with OAuth2 to obtain access tokens.10USPS Developer Portal. Payments 3.0
Two endpoints matter most for EPS users. The payment authorization endpoint generates a token required before purchasing any shipping label; the token is valid for eight hours, so your integration needs refresh logic for longer runs. The payment account inquiry endpoint returns your EPS balance and account status, which is useful for internal alerts or for pausing label generation when funds get low.
When configuring transactions, the PAYER role must specify “EPS” as the account type and include an active EPS account number, and both the PAYER and LABEL_OWNER roles are required for any label purchase.10USPS Developer Portal. Payments 3.0 USPS provides a separate testing environment at apis-tem.usps.com so you can validate the integration before running live transactions against your real balance.