Royal Mail has announced significant price increases for its wholesale postal service, with average hikes of 25% set to take effect on 5 October. The increases will apply to bulk mail customers including intermediaries like UK Mail, Whistl, and Citipost, which process correspondence for major organisations such as the NHS and HMRC.
The NHS alone spent at least £100m on postal services in 2024, according to previous reports, meaning the price increases could result in several million pounds of additional costs for the health service. Specific rate increases vary by service type, with economy bulk mail services seeing increases of 36.1% for items up to 100 grams, while standard advertising mail services for larger items face increases of 11.4%.
Royal Mail attributed the increases to the financial challenges of maintaining the UK’s nationwide postal network, citing rising operational costs including fuel and labour expenses. The company noted that access mail volumes have declined significantly, falling from 6.3 billion items annually in 2019-20 to approximately 4.2 billion currently, while the number of delivery addresses has grown to 32 million.
The announcement comes as Royal Mail, under Czech billionaire ownership since April 2025, continues to face regulatory scrutiny. Ofcom launched a fresh investigation in June after finding that nearly a quarter of first-class mail arrived late in the year to March. The regulator has issued £37m in fines since 2023 for failure to meet delivery targets.
The Mail Users’ Association, representing financial services companies and large mail producers, characterised the price increase as unprecedented and warned it would place considerable financial pressure on organisations dependent on mail for customer communication. Royal Mail stated that bulk mail customers would continue to benefit from lower prices compared to consumer rates and emphasized efforts to reduce the impact of market changes on customers.
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