Postal banking is the delivery of financial services through the post office rather than a commercial bank. In the United States today it is a narrow set of offerings: domestic money orders, electronic remittances to a handful of Latin American countries through the Sure Money program, and a small check-cashing pilot at four post offices. Proposals in Congress would go much further and let USPS offer checking accounts, savings accounts, and small-dollar loans, but current law blocks that expansion without new legislation.
What USPS Actually Offers Today
The most widely used service is the domestic money order. You can buy one at any post office for up to $1,000, paying $2.55 for amounts up to $500 and $3.60 for amounts between $500.01 and $1,000. Military postal money orders cost $0.84.1United States Postal Service. Money Orders Domestic postal money orders do not expire, and each carries a detachable receipt that acts as proof of purchase.
Payment must be in cash, PIN debit, or U.S.-dollar traveler’s checks; credit cards are not accepted, which shuts down using money orders as a cash-advance workaround.1United States Postal Service. Money Orders If you pay with a traveler’s check, the money order must be for at least half its value.2United States Postal Service. Domestic Mail Manual S020 – Money Orders and Other Services Every window transaction requires a valid government-issued photo ID, and purchases of $3,000 or more in a single day trigger federal identifying-information collection on Form 8105-A.3United States Postal Service. PS Form 8105-A, Funds Transaction Report, and PS 8105-B, Suspicious Transaction Report, Revisions
For sending money abroad, USPS operates Sure Money (DineroSeguro), an electronic remittance service to Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, and Nicaragua. Service to Argentina and Peru is suspended.4USPS Postal Explorer. Sure Money (DineroSeguro) The daily transfer cap is $1,500.5USPS Postal Explorer. International Mail Manual – Sure Money (DineroSeguro) A 2024 Federal Register filing lists approved per-transfer prices of $69.30 for amounts up to $750 and $100.25 for amounts between $750.01 and $1,500.6Federal Register. Change in Classes of General Applicability for Competitive Products Those prices are steep next to private-sector remittance companies, so it is worth pricing the alternative before you send.
One boundary to note: as of October 1, 2025, USPS no longer cashes international money orders at all. You can still buy domestic money orders and send Sure Money transfers, but walking into a post office to cash an inbound international money order is no longer an option.7United States Postal Service. Money Orders – The Basics
The newest experiment is check cashing. In September 2021, USPS began letting customers cash payroll and business checks at four locations: Washington, D.C.; Baltimore; Falls Church, Virginia; and the Bronx. Personal checks are not eligible. The cap is $500 per check, the flat fee is $5.95, and the proceeds go onto a single-use gift card rather than being paid out as cash. Commercial check cashers typically charge 2% to 3% of face value, so a $500 payroll check that costs $10 to $15 at a storefront costs $5.95 at these post offices. USPS positioned the pilot as an extension of its existing authority to sell stored-value cards rather than a new service line. Publicly available USPS records do not make clear whether it has expanded, contracted, or wound down since launch.
Why the Post Office Can’t Just Open Accounts
The Postal Service’s operating powers are set out in 39 U.S.C. § 404. That statute authorizes it to sell stamped paper, cards, envelopes, and related products, but says nothing explicit about money orders or banking.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 39 Section 404 – Specific Powers The financial services that do exist today survive because they predate the tighter restriction now in force.
That restriction is the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006, which added subsection (c) to § 404. It defines “nonpostal services” as anything outside core mail delivery and forbids USPS from starting new ones. The only nonpostal services it may keep offering are those already in place as of January 1, 2006, that survived a subsequent Postal Regulatory Commission review.9United States Postal Service. Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act Money orders and international transfers cleared that bar. Checking accounts, savings accounts, and small loans did not exist to be grandfathered in, so USPS cannot introduce them without Congress amending the law.
The Case Behind the Push
The reason postal banking keeps returning to the policy conversation is that a sizable share of Americans still operate outside the banking system. The FDIC’s most recent national survey found 4.2% of U.S. households, roughly 5.6 million, had no checking or savings account at any bank or credit union.10FDIC. FDIC National Survey of Unbanked and Underbanked Households Those households lean on money orders, check cashers, and prepaid cards, often paying steep fees for services that account holders receive at little or no cost. USPS has more than 31,000 locations, including in rural areas and low-income urban neighborhoods where bank branches are thin on the ground.
There is domestic precedent as well. Congress created the Postal Savings System in 1910, and post offices began accepting deposits on January 1, 1911. It was designed to draw savings out from under mattresses, attracting immigrants used to postal banking abroad and Americans who had lost faith in private banks after a run of panics. It expanded during the Depression as banks failed, then shrank as FDIC insurance rebuilt confidence in commercial banks. On April 27, 1966, the Post Office Department stopped accepting new deposits and closed the system.11United States Postal Service. Postal Savings System
The Postal Banking Act
Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Bernie Sanders introduced the Postal Banking Act, which would direct USPS to set up a nonprofit bank providing low-cost checking and savings accounts, ATM access, mobile banking, and small-dollar loans.12Senator Kirsten Gillibrand. Gillibrand, Sanders Introduce Postal Banking Act To Provide Financial Services To Underbanked Americans The bill has not advanced to a floor vote.
The banking industry opposes the concept, arguing that USPS lacks the expertise and infrastructure for deposit-taking and lending. Supporters point to the Postal Savings System’s more than 50 years of operation and to postal banking systems currently run in the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and India. Whether the idea moves forward turns on whether Congress amends the 2006 law’s ban on new nonpostal services.