Citizens Advice responds to Royal Mail's Q2 quality of service results for 2025-26

Responding to Royal Mail's latest quality of service results for Q2 2025-26, which shows that the company did not meet its delivery targets for First or Second class post between July and September 2025,

Tom MacInnes, Director of Policy at Citizens Advice, said:

“Royal Mail’s poor performance is only the latest disappointment in a long list of disasters. While the company returned to profit earlier this year, consumers are still forking out more money for an unreliable service.

“Things could go from bad to worse when cuts to 2nd class delivery days come into full effect. Royal Mail will have just half of the opportunities to deliver - which is why it’s so concerning that people aren’t getting their post on time now.

“Late post means people miss urgent medical appointments, benefit decisions, bills and fines. We must see Ofcom coming forward with measures to address crucial consumer needs, like reliability, not just Royal Mail’s bottom line.”

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Notes to editors:

  1. Royal Mail’s latest Quality of Service results refer to Q2 (July-September) of the 25-26 financial year. Under the Universal Service Obligation (USO), the regulator Ofcom requires Royal Mail to deliver, in each financial year, 93% of First Class mail within one working day of collection, and 98.5% of Second Class mail within three working days of collection.

  2. In July this year, Ofcom announced changes to the USO. As of July 28th, 2025, Royal Mail only needs to deliver Second Class mail on alternate weekdays, instead of six-days-a-week, Monday to Saturday. These changes have not yet come into full effect across the UK, with Royal Mail planning to roll this out nationwide by early 2026.

  3. Ofcom lowered Royal Mail’s headline delivery targets as part of the changes to the USO, which mean that from April 1st, 2026, Royal Mail will be required to deliver 90% of First Class Mail within one working day (instead of 93%), and 95% of Second Class mail within three days (instead of 98.5%).

  4. Tail of the mail targets have been introduced and will also come into effect on April 1st, 2026. These are targets for the delivery of items which have not met headline targets. For First Class mail, 99% will have to be delivered within three days, and for Second Class mail, 99% will have to be delivered within five working days.

  5. Citizens Advice is made up of the national charity Citizens Advice; the network of independent local Citizens Advice charities across England and Wales; the Citizens Advice consumer service; and the Witness Service.

  6. Our network of charities offers impartial advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free. 

  7. Citizens Advice helped 2.68 million people face to face, over the phone, by email and webchat in 2023-24. And we had 51.7 million visits to our website. For full service statistics see our monthly publication Advice trends.

  8. Citizens Advice service staff are supported by more than 19,000 trained volunteers, working at over 1,900 service outlets across England and Wales.

  9. Citizens Advice is the statutory consumer advocate for energy and postal markets. We provide supplier performance information to consumers and policy analysis to decision makers. 

  10. You can get consumer advice from the Citizens Advice consumer service on 0808 223 1133 or 0808 223 1144 for Welsh language speakers.