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Royal Mail will hike prices on all first and second class stamps. The move comes amid a barcode shake-up. A first class stamp will soon cost 95p.
The cost of a second class stamp will go up by 2p to 68p. A statement said: “Royal Mail has considered these pricing changes very carefully in light of the long term structural decline in letter usage and rising inflation.
“Letter volumes have declined by more than 60% since their peak in 2004/5, and around 20% since the start of the pandemic.”
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If stamp prices stayed the same it would mean the Royal Mail could not continue its ‘universal service’ – the promise that it costs the same price to send a letter to any address in the UK, six days a week.
Royal Mail chief commercial officer Nick Landon said: “We understand that many companies and households are finding it hard in the current economic environment, and we will always keep our prices as affordable as possible.
“Whilst the number of letters our postmen and women deliver has declined from around 20 billion a year to around 7 billion since 2004/5, the number of addresses they have to deliver to has grown by around 3.5 million in the same period.
“We need to carefully balance our pricing against declining letter volumes and increasing costs of delivering to a growing number of addresses six days a week.”
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