Christmas Eve is a federal holiday, so will postal services, such as USPS, UPS, and FedEx, be affected? Will post offices be closed or operate with holiday hours on December 24, 2019?
This year, President Donald Trump has declared Christmas Eve a federal holiday and has given most federal workers the day off. This may affect the operating hours of services including USPS. However, UPS and FedEx are privately owned companies and should not be affected by this change.
USPS services on Christmas Eve
USPS mail will be delivered as usual on Christmas Eve and will not be affected by holiday hours. However, USPS Blue Collection Boxes will be affected by the federal holiday and all mail will be collected by noon. Post office hours vary by location, and your local post office may close early on Christmas Eve.
Christmas Day, on December 25, is a Postal Holiday. Post offices will be closed and regular USPS mail will not be delivered. However, priority mail express will still be delivered. Mail services will operate and post offices will open on December 26 as usual.
UPS services on Christmas Eve
UPS mail will be delivered on Christmas Eve as UPS does not observe the holiday. UPS is not affiliated with the U.S. government so its workers will not have the day off due to the federal holiday.
However, UPS observes Christmas Day, so regular UPS mail will not be delivered on December 25 and regular UPS services will not operate. Only UPS Express Critical mail will be delivered on Christmas Day.
UPS services will operate as normal on December 26. Please note that UPS will not deliver mail on January 1.
FedEx services on Christmas Eve
Like UPS, FedEx is a privately owned company so does not observe the federal holiday on Christmas Eve.
However, FedEx Express and FedEx office will run with modified service on December 24 and FedEx Freight will not operate. All other FedEx services will operate as normal.
All FedEx services except for FedEx Custom Critical will be closed on Christmas Day. All services will open as normal on December 26, except for FedEx Office which will run on modified hours.
Which U.S. Government services will operate on Christmas Eve?
To find out which U.S. Government services will operate on Christmas Eve, we have rounded up which offices are open and which are closed on December 24.
On December 17, President Trump declared Christmas Eve a federal holiday. The executive order from President Trump states: "All executive departments and agencies of the Federal Government shall be closed and their employees excused from duty on Tuesday, December 24, 2019, the day before Christmas Day.
"The heads of executive departments and agencies may determine that certain offices and installations of their organizations, or parts thereof, must remain open and that certain employees must report for duty on December 24, 2019, for reasons of national security, defense, or other public need."
