Royal Mail announces radical changes in use of stamps

In January of 2022, Royal Mail announced its first major shake up of the use of postage stamps for postal use since decimalisation in 1971. Currently any stamp issued with decimal currency from 1971 onwards is still valid for postal use on letters and parcels when you send via your post office or pop into a post box. (as long as the correct rate of postage has been used for your letter/parcel!).

You may have noticed in recent months and with the Christmas stamps of 2021 that 2D barcodes have started to appear alongside stamps with the Queens head on (known as Definitives or Machins) and also Christmas stamps. Royal Mail have stated that the use of these stamps is:-

"The move is part of the Company’s extensive and ongoing modernisation drive and will allow the unique barcodes to facilitate operational efficiencies, enable the introduction of added security features and pave the way for innovative services for customers." (source: Royal Mail Website)

Royal Mail have also stated that the introduction of these stamps is to eliminate the forgery and reuse of the existing stamps.

So what will happen? well you have until the end of January 2023 to use up your old supplies of stamps which include the above mentioned and Christmas stamps that have been issued since 1971. In short if the stamp has not got a barcode it wont be valid and Royal Mail will treat it as an underpaid item. However if the stamp is a commemorative stamp (with a picture) then these are not affected by the changes. As these are issued as one off sets or issues then these would still continue to be valid for use on postage.

If you have lots of stamps at home and you can't use them up then Royal Mail do have a swap scheme. This is not available through post offices, and you must approach Royal Mail direct. The link to access the form is here:

https://www.royalmail.com/sites/royalmail.com/files/2022-04/Stamp-Swap-Out-Form-under-200-pounds-v1_1.pdf

Further information about this swap out scheme is available from Royal Mail.

We will expand on this article as more information is available. One question we ask ourselves is do Royal Mail know potentially how much this will cost. There was a frightening figure a few years ago that there is something in the region of £30 million pounds of stamps unused in the UK with stamp dealers and the general public. That particular statistic stated that if everyone used their own stamps for a fortnight, Royal Mail would be in financial trouble.