Royal Mail raises cost of first-class stamp to £1.80

Stamp prices will rise for the seventh time in four years next month, Royal Mail has announced.

The beleaguered company, which has missed delivery targets for three consecutive years, is increasing the price of a first-class stamp by 10p to £1.80. It means the cost of a first-class stamp has almost doubled since 2022, when it was priced at 95p.

The cost of first-class stamps will rise on April 7, with second-class prices increasing from 87p to 91p.

Royal Mail – now owned by Daniel Křetínský, the Czech billionaire – said the fee increase reflected the “continued rise in cost of delivery”.

Next month’s price jump is the first since the company scrapped Saturday deliveries for second-class post in July and reduced deliveries to alternate weekdays.

The changes, which do not affect first-class deliveries, were permitted by Ofcom, the regulator, and could help Royal Mail save between £250m and £425m a year.

Richard Travers, the managing director of letters at Royal Mail, said: “We always consider price changes very carefully, balancing affordability with the rising cost of delivering mail.

“On average, UK adults now spend just £6.50 each year on stamps and there are 70pc fewer letters sent than 20 years ago.

“In the meantime, the number of addresses we deliver to has increased by four million to 32 million addresses across the UK.”

The average household now only receives four letters per week.

Royal Mail said the new price of a second-class stamp remains 65p below the European average price of £1.56, while a first-class stamp is 13p below the Continent’s average of £1.93.

However, Anne Pardoe, of charity Citizens Advice, said: “The price of stamps can’t be treated as a dial that is turned up without a clear justification for consumers, forcing people to dig deeper into their pockets for a failing service.”

In 2015, a first-class stamp cost 63p – almost tripling the price in the space of a decade.

In October 2025, Ofcom fined Royal Mail £21m for missing its 2024-25 delivery targets, with just 77pc of first-class mail arriving on time. It was the third consecutive year it received multi-million-pound fines for poor performance.

Alistair Cochrane, the company’s chief executive, said performance was “still not good enough”.

From next month, Royal Mail will only be required to deliver 90pc of first-class post on the next working day, down from 93pc, while 95pc of second-class will need to be delivered within three working days, down from 98.5pc.

Postal workers told The Telegraph this week that second-class mail is being held back until there is a sufficient amount of first-class post to justify a delivery.