Short answer
For a permanent change of address, the Postal Service keeps the record 18 months and says forwarding is generally available for the first 12 of them. The class table behind that number is where it gets specific: First-Class, Priority, and Ground Advantage pieces are forwarded in months 1 through 12, periodicals stop at 60 days, and usps.com states USPS Marketing Mail is not forwarded. A temporary order runs 15 to 185 days and can be stretched to 364. Those numbers assume forwarding applies to your address at all, and there is one category where it does not. Which side of the move that category sits on changes the answer completely.
Key takeaways
- Two numbers get quoted as one. Under DMM 507.2.1.1, Post Offices keep the record of a permanent change of address for 18 months, and forwarding is generally available for the first 12. The extra six months of record is why a sender can still be told your new address after your mail has stopped following you.
- The 12 months is not a blanket rule across mail classes. Exhibit 1.5.1, in the section 507.2.1.1 points to, forwards First-Class, Priority, and Ground Advantage pieces in months 1 through 12, Exhibit 1.5.2 forwards periodicals for the first 60 days, and usps.com states USPS Marketing Mail is not forwarded.
- Direction decides everything. DMM 507.2.2.7 says mail addressed to an addressee at a commercial mail receiving agency is not forwarded through USPS, which governs the address you are leaving. Moving to one is a different question, answered by DMM 508.1.8.3: the agency needs your PS Form 1583 on file and the address has to carry the PMB designation.
- PS Form 1583 is not only an application. Its agreement section states that the applicant or the agent must not file a change of address order with the Postal Service upon termination of the agency relationship. What replaces it is remail, which DMM 508.1.8.4 requires for at least six months, though the same section releases the agency from that duty where written instructions say otherwise, and it lets those instructions sit in the service agreement.
- Forwarding moves the address, not the name. DMM 507.2.2.2 says so directly, so mail addressed to a business name you have retired is not repaired by filing a change of address, however much time is left on the clock.
Before you start
- Decide which side of the move is a CMRA, the address you are leaving or the one you are going to, because the rule that applies is different on each side.
- If you signed a PS Form 1583, look at item 6, the transfer address block. It is filled in only when mail is to be sent on to another address, so it can be blank.
Who this is for
- Owners who filed a change of address after moving an office and want to know when mail stops following the company.
- Anyone leaving a virtual address, mailbox store, or office business center who assumes a change of address will cover the exit.
The 12-month answer, and the 18-month number behind it
The Postal Service publishes this in the Domestic Mail Manual, a level below the consumer pages that carry the same number. DMM 507.2.1.1 says a record of permanent change-of-address orders is kept by Post Offices for 18 months, from the end of the month when the change takes effect, and that generally, forwarding is available for the first 12 months.
Those are two clocks and it is worth keeping them apart. The 12-month clock is how long your mail physically follows you. The 18-month clock is how long USPS remembers where you went, which is why a sender can still receive an address correction notice for months after your mail stopped arriving.
Note the word generally. The sentence in 507.2.1.1 carries no mail class at all, and it points the reader to section 1.5 for the detail. That is where the class-by-class treatment lives. Exhibit 1.5.1, covering First-Class Mail, Priority Mail, and USPS Ground Advantage, is the one that says months 1 through 12: piece forwarded. That is the default path, and the exhibit sorts by what the sender endorsed on the envelope, so a piece marked Return Service Requested is returned in all cases, whether or not a change-of-address order is on file. Exhibit 1.5.2, covering periodicals, says first 60 days: piece forwarded. The consumer page states it the simple way, that standard mail forwarding lasts 12 months, without naming a class. One level down, the twelve months turns out to be a First-Class number.
If 12 months is not enough, DMM 507.2.1.2 allows you to buy Extended Mail Forwarding at a Post Office or through the change of address application on usps.com, in six-month increments for an additional 6, 12, or 18 months, with 18 as the ceiling. Temporary orders run on a different schedule again: DMM 507.2.1.3 sets an initial period of two weeks to six months, stated as 15 to 185 days, extendable to a maximum of 364 consecutive days, and every temporary order has to carry both a start and an end date.
| What you filed, and for which mail | How long it runs | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent order, the general rule | Record kept 18 months, forwarding generally available the first 12 | DMM 507.2.1.1 |
| First-Class, Priority, Ground Advantage | Forwarded in months 1 through 12 | DMM 507 Exhibit 1.5.1 |
| Periodicals, such as magazines | Forwarded the first 60 days, and without charge when postage is fully prepaid by the sender | DMM 507 Exhibit 1.5.2, DMM 507.2.3.4 |
| USPS Marketing Mail | Not forwarded | usps.com forwarding page |
| Extended Mail Forwarding, paid | 6, 12, or 18 additional months, 18 is the maximum | DMM 507.2.1.2 |
| Temporary order | 15 to 185 days initially, up to 364 consecutive days in total | DMM 507.2.1.3 |
| Mail addressed to a CMRA | Not forwarded through USPS at all | DMM 507.2.2.7 |
Forwarding periods as stated in the USPS Domestic Mail Manual and on usps.com, retrieved July 28, 2026. Fees appear on usps.com and in Notice 123 rather than in the sections cited here.
Filing it costs $1.25 online, and the manual points at a price list
The usps.com forwarding page asks you to pay the $1.25 identity verification fee when you file online. Its in-person instructions on the same page name no fee: request a free Mover's Guide packet, fill out the PS Form 3575 inside it, and hand it to the retail associate, who verifies your identity with your photo ID.
The manual describes the same split without printing an amount. DMM 507.2.1.4 requires a customer using the internet method to pass device-reputation authentication verification and to provide a valid credit card number for authentication verification, adding that the customer's credit card is charged a credit card authentication fee and referring the reader to Notice 123 for the figure. A customer presenting PS Form 3575 at the counter provides an acceptable primary form of identification instead, and no fee is attached to that path in either source we read.
The amount matters here because it moved, and the pages describing it have not all caught up. We come back to that below with the numbers those pages actually print.
The direction that decides whether forwarding runs at all
Everything above assumes forwarding applies to your address. For one category it does not, and the rule is a single sentence. DMM 507.2.2.7 states that mail addressed to an addressee at a commercial mail receiving agency, a CMRA, is not forwarded through the USPS. It continues that the CMRA customer may make special arrangements for the CMRA operator to remail the mail with payment of new postage.
Read the sentence carefully, because the direction is easy to get backwards, and an earlier draft of this article had it backwards. It governs mail already addressed to a CMRA, which is the address you are moving away from. If the address you are leaving carries that registration, and mailbox stores, virtual addresses, and serviced offices often do, there is no 12-month forwarding period standing between you and lost mail. It was never going to run.
Moving to one of those addresses is a different question and the manual answers it elsewhere. We found no prohibition on forwarding to a CMRA in the sections we read, DMM 507.2 and 508.1.8, but 508.1.8.3 attaches two conditions that decide whether the mail actually lands. The agency must have a current PS Form 1583 on file for you, and the address must carry the private mailbox designation. USPS may return mail without a proper address to the sender endorsed Undeliverable as Addressed, Missing PMB or # Sign.
A CMRA is not an exotic category, which is why the direction question comes up so often. DMM 508.1.8.1 defines it as a business that, in whole or in part, accepts the delivery of U.S. Mail on behalf of another person or entity as a business service, and it reaches further than the name suggests. An office business center, defined there as a business that operates primarily to provide private office facilities and other business support services, is considered a CMRA for Postal Service purposes. So is a business operating primarily to provide reshipping or redelivery services. Whether the building is a real office is not the test. Whether a particular address carries the registration is a question about that address, not about the category it markets itself under, and our free address checker answers it.
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What you signed on PS Form 1583
There is a second rule, and it is not one USPS imposes from outside. It is something the customer agreed to. DMM 508.1.8.4 sets out terms that the addressee and the CMRA accept as a condition of mail being delivered there, and the first is that when the agency relationship between the CMRA and the addressee terminates, neither the addressee nor the CMRA will file a change-of-address order with the Post Office.
That term is not confined to the manual. It is printed on the form. The agreement section of PS Form 1583, the June 2024 revision, states that the applicant or the agent must not file a change of address order with the Postal Service upon termination of the agency relationship. Taking delivery at a mailbox address means signing that page, which tends to be remembered for the identity check or the notary block rather than for its terms.
What replaces forwarding is remail, and it is written into the same section. The CMRA must remail mail intended for the customer for at least six months after the termination date, and DMM 507.2.2.7 repeats the obligation from the other direction, adding that after the six-month period the CMRA may refuse mail addressed to a former customer. One condition is worth knowing before you rely on it: 508.1.8.4 says the remailing obligation need not be fulfilled if the customer provides written instructions that the mail not be remailed, and it allows those instructions to sit in an internal service agreement between the customer and the CMRA. The safety net can be switched off by the contract you signed alongside the form.
- 1Find the transfer address on your 1583. It is item 6, and its footnote makes it conditional: you complete it if mail addressed to the box is to be transferred, mailed, shipped, or emailed to another address. If you collect in person or read scans, it may be blank, and blank is not an address anyone can remail to.
- 2Read the provider's service agreement for remail terms. DMM 508.1.8.4 lets written instructions release the agency from the obligation, so the six months is a default rather than a guarantee.
- 3Expect to pay postage. DMM 507.2.2.7 describes remail as being sent with payment of new postage, which is a different arrangement from free USPS forwarding.
- 4Do not count on month seven. The same section allows the agency to refuse mail addressed to a former customer once the six months are up.
What the nine pages we read leave out
On July 28, 2026 we ran two US searches, for how long does USPS forward mail and for change of address for business, and opened nine third-party pages between them, reading each in full rather than from its search snippet. The count is worth stating plainly because search results move and anyone checking this later should know what we looked at.
Not one of the nine cites the Domestic Mail Manual. Not one states that mail addressed to a CMRA is not forwarded through USPS. One of them does discuss commercial mail receiving agencies, and usefully: it defines the term and explains that USPS requires the PMB designation when filing a change of address to a private mailbox address, which is the moving-to half of the question. The moving-from half, the sentence in 507.2.2.7, is absent from all nine.
The fee is the other place they scatter. Of those nine pages, one prints the current $1.25, two print $1.10, one prints $1.05, one prints $1, one calls it a nominal fee, and three name no figure at all. That is not a criticism of any one page so much as a description of what a reader gets by comparing them, which is five different answers to a question with a published one.
Forwarding moves the address, not the name
One more limit is easy to miss because it sits in a sentence about something else. DMM 507.2.2.2 covers reforwarding and says the address, but not the name, may be changed, and the mail reforwarded as many times as necessary to reach the addressee.
For a business that is a sharper constraint than it looks. If you have retired a trading name, changed the legal entity, or are receiving mail addressed to a company that no longer matches what a sender has on file, a change of address does not repair the name on the envelope. It relocates mail that is already addressed to you correctly. That is one reason a change of address is a poor substitute for telling the IRS, your state, your bank, and your vendors directly, and our guide on business mail when an office closes walks through that notification order.
What expired forwarding looks like when it comes back
When the clock does run out, the mail does not vanish quietly. USPS returns it to the sender with a reason attached, and the endorsement covering this case appears in DMM 507 Exhibit 1.4.1 as Not Deliverable as Addressed, Unable to Forward. The exhibit gives three situations that produce it: mail undeliverable at the address given, no change-of-address order on file, and a forwarding order that expired.
The endorsement is worth recognizing because all three causes look identical to the sender. A vendor who receives that envelope learns only that you are not reachable at the address they hold, not that your forwarding lapsed last month. Its close relative is the CMRA endorsement above, Undeliverable as Addressed, Missing PMB or # Sign, which can bounce mail at an address where the account is perfectly current.
Where save office fits
The honest version of our own position belongs here rather than at the end. save office operates seven addresses, and two of them, San Francisco and Washington DC, are registered CMRAs. The rules above apply to those two as written: mail addressed there is outside USPS forwarding under 507.2.2.7, and the remail obligation and the 1583 terms are what govern an exit. The other five carry no CMRA registration. We are not going to translate that into a promise about how USPS or a bank will treat them, because the registration is a record rather than a rating, and because the definition in 508.1.8.1 turns on what a business does rather than on what any list says about it.
The reason we think this is worth reading anyway is simpler than a sales argument. A forwarding order is a countdown, and people file one because their address is temporary. A permanent commercial address does not remove every clock, as the section above should make clear, but it removes the reason to keep restarting one. If you want to know how any US address is classified before you build a year of mail delivery on it, our free address checker will tell you, including for the addresses we do not sell.
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