THE Christmas holidays are upon us which means some services may not be available.
Deliveries usually don’t happen on Bank Holidays or local holidays, but read on to find out more.
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The Christmas holidays may affect some services, such as shops opening slightly later or closing earlier.
Your deliveries may also be affected by the public holiday.
Read on to find out how your Royal Mail deliveries and collections could be affected.
Is there post during the Christmas period?
Royal Mail says that it delivers on most days of the year, including Saturdays.
Read more on opening times
But they do not deliver or collect on public holidays.
That includes any bank holidays throughout the year.
This means that there will be no post on December 25 and December 26, 2023 or on January 1, 2024.
You can still post a letter at any one of their 100,000 post boxes across the country.
But you won’t be able to go into a Post Office on a bank holiday as these are usually closed.
If you need to send a larger package or need other services from the Post Office, you’ll need to do this before or after the bank holiday.
Courier and postal services, including Royal Mail will end their Christmas break and resume normal opening hours on December 27. And after the New Year, postal services should be back to normal on January 2, except in Scotland.
To check if your post office is open, you’ll need to type in your postcode and a list of nearby branches with their details should appear.
It will also show opening hours.
Grant McPherson, Royal Mail’s chief operating officer, said: “We are pulling out all the stops to deliver Christmas for our customers.
“It’s our busiest time of the year and we know how important it is for people that we deliver letters and parcels on time.”
Here are the last Christmas posting dates for 2023:
- Monday 18th December for Second Class mail, including signed-for
- Tuesday 19th December for First Class mail
- Wednesday 20th December for Royal Mail Tracked 48
- Thursday 21st December for Royal Mail Tracked 24
- Friday 22nd December for Special Delivery Guaranteed
So don’t forget to get your cards and gifts in the post in good time and beat those last-minute snake-like queues in the post office.
What other bank holidays are there?
It is best to check your local Post Office opening times over the bank holidays as times will vary from branch to branch.
Royal Mail says on its website that the following dates in England and Wales will also be affected.
There are no collections or deliveries on the:
