The price of a first class stamp has risen by 10p today, despite Royal Mail‘s repeated failure to meet delivery targets.
First class stamps will now cost £1.80 while second class stamps have risen by 4p to 91p.
It means the cost of a first class stamp has now more than doubled in the last six years after eight rises, while second class stamps have seen six price hikes.
It comes as Royal Mail admitted last month it had missed delivery targets again in the most recent quarter.
Only 73.7 per cent of first class mail had been delivered on time, against a target of 93 per cent.
In March, Royal Mail boss Daniel Kretinsky said he was ‘deeply sorry’ and said the quality of service ‘is not where we want it to be’.
He faced questions from MPs about ongoing postal delays, but said had a plan to fix the situation.
Mr Kretinsky said Royal Mail’s most difficult challenge is to get the first-class postal service up to scratch, but stressed the UK offers a service that most other countries in Europe no longer offer.
The price of a first class stamp is to rise by 10p next month, taking the cost to £1.80
Anne Pardoe, head of policy at Citizens Advice, previously said: More than half a decade has gone by since the company met its delivery targets and people still face a gamble, with many uncertain if their important documents or letters like medical appointments will arrive on time.
‘Things only risk getting worse when cuts to delivery days and reduced performance targets come into full effect.’
She said Ofcom ‘simply cannot wave through these increases any longer’ and higher prices ‘must come with higher standards’.
Ms Pardoe said stamp price rises should be tied to Royal Mail’s performance on the doorstep.
Royal Mail said the stamp rises reflected the continued increase in delivery costs as letter volumes fell and the number of addresses increased.
Richard Travers, managing director of letters at Royal Mail, said in March: ‘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 70% 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 last time Royal Mail met its annual target for delivering first-class post on time was in 2019-20.
The firm – whose owner International Distribution Services (IDS) was bought last June for £3.6billion by Czech billionaire Daniel Kretinsky’s EP Group – repeated its call to ‘urgently move forward’ with reforms.
Ofcom last year cleared Royal Mail to scrap second-class letter deliveries on Saturdays and change the service to every other weekday, changes which have been introduced as a pilot across 35 delivery offices.
A first class stamp has more than doubled in price across eight separate rises in the last six years
But the company has been in intensive talks with the Communications Workers Union (CWU) after failing to agree on how to roll out the universal service changes across its 1,200-strong network.
Month-long talks ended on March 2 without agreement and have been extended for two weeks.
Mr Travers said: ‘To protect the service for the future we need to urgently move forward with implementing universal service reform to support a more modern, more reliable and more sustainable service for our customers.’
At the start of this year, Royal Mail blamed the stormy weather and staff sickness for delayed deliveries across more than 100 UK postcodes.
A spokesman for the company said that ‘adverse weather, including storms Goretti, Ingrid and Chandra in January, alongside higher-than-usual sick absence, caused ‘some short-term disruption to certain routes.’
Watchdog Citizens Advice also found that Royal Mail failed to deliver letters to 16million people on time over the Christmas period.
The ‘dreadful festive slump’ was a 50 per cent increase from December 2024, when 10.7million people saw letters arrive late, Citizens Advice said.
The staggering number of late deliveries over Christmas 2025, which applies to letters and cards but not parcels, affected 29 per cent of UK adults.
Citizens Advice, which is the statutory watchdog for post, revealed some 5.7million customers missed vital letters about health appointments, fines, benefit decisions and legal documents, leaving people ‘distressed’.
Royal Mail has been contacted for comment.