Ofcom “shares the deep frustrations of customers who have missed important letters because of Royal Mail”
Ofcom has today opened an investigation into Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets for 2025/26
Royal Mail performance results show delivery falls well short of targets
Ofcom has today opened an investigation into Royal Mail’s failure to meet its delivery targets for 2025/26.
Last July, Ofcom modernised the obligations placed on Royal Mail to reflect steep declines in the number of letters being sent. As well as allowing Second Class letters to be delivered on alternate weekdays, Ofcom made changes to Royal Mail’s delivery targets.
Royal Mail has now reached an agreement with the Communication Workers Union to implement the new delivery patterns. The company expects to complete roll-out of the new delivery model by Christmas this year. As demanded by Ofcom, it has set out a plan to significantly improve delivery service. This includes committing to investing £500 million over the next five years, and establishing a quarter-by-quarter path towards meeting its delivery targets by next April.
While Royal Mail is now making progress, it has taken almost a year to begin the process of implementing the delivery reforms. In the meantime, service levels have remained unacceptable.
On Friday, Royal Mail published its annual delivery performance results for the year ending March 2026, showing that only 75.7% of First Class mail was delivered the next working day – well short of its then-target of 93%. Only 90.2% of Second Class mail was delivered within three working days – also well short of a 98.5% target.
Ofcom has therefore opened an investigation into its performance in 2025/26.
Ian Strawhorne, Enforcement Director at Ofcom, said: “A reliable postal service is vital to many people across the country. Ofcom shares the deep frustrations of customers who have missed important letters because of Royal Mail’s consistent failure to improve its service over the years. While the company is now making progress through its improvement plan, Ofcom will continue to hold it to account for its unacceptable performance to date.”
Ofcom expects Royal Mail to begin implementing the improvement plan immediately. This includes addressing the changing needs and expectations of customers in a transformed postal market.
Twenty years ago, Royal Mail was delivering 20 billion letters in a year. That has now declined to 6.5 billion in 2025 and is expected to fall further in the coming years. Royal Mail has lost hundreds of millions of pounds in recent years, and so it must also become more efficient to meet these challenges.
How Ofcom investigates, and what happens next
Ofcom measures Royal Mail’s delivery performance against nationwide annual delivery targets, from April to March, excluding the Christmas period. This is done by independently-audited testing of hundreds of thousands of mail items that are sent each year.
In deciding whether Royal Mail breached its regulatory obligations, Ofcom will consider all relevant factors. This will include the question of parcel prioritisation, as well as identifying whether there were any exceptional events beyond the company’s control that may have affected its performance. Where Ofcom determine a breach of Royal Mail’s obligations during its investigation, Ofcom will consider whether to impose a financial penalty.
Ofcom has fined Royal Mail more than £37 million for delivery failures in the past.
