USPS now offers official ZIP Code boundary polygons

untessela

starting at $10k

foxfired

I feel like this should be public. I wonder what would be the repercussion of a gofundme to buy it once and make it publicly available. There aren't many downsides of updating every couple years.

jackconsidine

Seeing enterprise We use https://github.com/OpenDataDE/State-zip-code-GeoJSON - it's from 2010, but open it in Claude and use the free-to-download data source to regen from the most recent census.

mzagaja

As someone who has done tons of geospatial work I hate this. A ZIP code was never technically a geospatial boundary. Being "inside" a boundary does not guarantee you have that ZIP code, just that the space is surrounded by a bunch of postal delivery addresses bearing the ZIP code.

readthenotes1

The USPS is losing money hand over fist delivering the unwanted junk mail and Christmas cards we throw away once the tree is put away. I don't think this will stop the bleed, but maybe it'll help that they are charging??

showerst

I thought these were going to be free and got so excited. FWIW if you're willing to deal with some 'fuzziness' and the occasional missing zip code that's commercial only, the ZCTA shapefiles are free and are close enough for many purposes: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/geography/guidance/g...

whalesalad

of course they are going to try and monetize this. that's trump's america.

1-6

Webapp in 3.2.1...

ortusdux

I'm sure their system has its faults, but I find shipping to the UK via postal code quite easy. "A full postcode identifies a group of addresses (typically around ten) or a major delivery point." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postcodes_in_the_United_Kingdo...

konfusinomicon

bottom line is that this should be open source and available on the US governments dataset website.

johnnyo

If this is govt-owned data, shouldn’t it be available with a FOIA request or similar? Can someone with expertise in govt data rights explain? Do any other US govt agencies sell data to the private sector?

Hnrobert42

For everyone saying it should be free, the USPS charges for services. They charge to deliver mail. Cut them some slack. They are supposed to be budget neutral. It is difficult to do when A) they have to compete with the private sector while adhering to public sector rules and B) being sabotaged by Trump's postmaster general appointee.

billbuild

This is amazing! It's actually how many people think spatially, who are not involved in politics versus congressional districts and census tracts.

themgt

Reminds me of one of my favorite little rabbit holes, trying to find this data for Canada: Canada is one of the only major countries where the postal/zip code boundary data is not available as an open data set. Canada Post has a monopoly on that dataset. As a Canadian GIS person it drives me nuts as many other Candian government GIS programs have been active in the open data/open-source world for decades. Even crazier is that Statistics Canada has an open database of all addresses in the country here https://www.statcan.gc.ca/en/lode/databases/oda that has a postal code column, but it's empty for all addresses. Anyone who has tried to create their own dataset of polygons has usually ended up being chased down by Canada post. There is a company called Geocoder.ca who made a geocoder and when you passed in a street address with a postal code in it, it would keep track of that, and geocode based on the street address. Over time they built up a database of coordinates and postal codes and were able to generate their own approximate boundaries that where pretty accurate. Canada Post went after them: https://geocoder.ca/?sued=1 Their data is still free for non-profits, and relatively cheap for commercial purposes: https://geocoder.ca/?freedata=1 The only other open data related postal codes you will find easily available is Forward Sortation Code boundaries (FSA) which is the area that represents the first three characters of a Canadian Postal code. For example, postal code "N0R 1K0" would have an FSA of "N0R". For demo's and some analysis scenarios that can often be enough. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/1655227/...

xp84

This is interesting. For a long time it was pointed out that ZIP codes, unlike say, city or state boundaries, were not properly representable as polygons, since they don't divide up acreage into zones, but rather label postal delivery routes. Suppose I build a new neighborhood way out in the middle of nowhere. The "polygon" concept suggests that we could look and see what polygon I'm in, and that will determine what post office delivers my mail. But in reality, if there was no route to that area already, they could decide to make it part of any one of the surrounding routes. I suppose though, as long as you let the polygons map has uncontained areas, where no routes currently exist, it's a doable task to draw polygons around the limits of every route network, as long as you don't mind that they may have lots of weird ragged edges.

VLM

Its heavily regulated to be a universal service. Its funded with the expectation of hypercapitalist efficiency. Somehow they actually run a profit off delivering junk mail annually, but they also have amortized expenses such as pensions etc which are sinking them. Again as per above, as a hyper regulated universal service they can't declare bankruptcy, while at the same time they're hypercapitalist and somehow have to make due as the financials sink lower and lower. Some say this is an intentional plan to destroy the postal system. You can't run on a political platform of destroying the office, it would be very unpopular to propose everyone pay more for for-profit mail delivery and did I mention who one of my corporate campaign donors is? but you can intentionally sabotage the USPS by always making the worst choice at every decision intentionally, and then "unavoidably we have to shut the service down for no known clear reason it just doesn't work". My guess is the intentional destruction will continue unabated until closure is announced. Its currently illegal for private carriers to deliver normal non-urgent letters because the USPS is a monopoly. You can put a document in an envelope or small box and UPS it, but its technically quite illegal at the federal level. My guess is eventually UPS or Amazon or fedex will purchase a law to be able to sell normal ground service physical first class mail delivery. I'm betting on Amazon winning a contract for this. My bills are all emails lost in my spam folder and I "just know" to visit my car insurance website and electric company website every month or so. Its worth considering that junk mail delivery is hyper profitable for the USPS, so thats probably not going away when mail delivery gets privatized. What is going away is the 82 cent postage stamp. UPS ground saver is a couple bucks. It'll be cheaper to take a picture of a letter then order prints of the picture at Walgreens nearby my mother than to mail her a greeting card LOL. Walgreens charges 39 cents for a post card sized digital print and their letter size prints are a ripoff at $4.50, better off sending multiple post card sized prints.

grzaks

Using ZIP codes to define geographic regions is always a bad idea. A ZIP code is an address attribute, not a geographic boundary. Some ZIP codes are assigned to PO boxes or parcel lockers, while entire cities may share a single ZIP code. You can even have streets stretching 30 km across a city, all under the same ZIP code.

mannyv

The bummer thing about their data is it's ZIP, not ZIP+4. Technically ZIP+4 is internal to USPS because it identifies a specific route (or something like that), but it's also is more precise than ZIP. The original tiger/line or ZCTA data is probably good enough for everyone. Those are available "around." I think the census provides them. I believe the census has the zip+4, but it's been years and I might have gotten them from somewhere else. The interesting thing in the data is the ESRI feature classes. I wonder what the heck those are.

tjwebbnorfolk

Even if I wanted to buy this data, I can't figure out how

otter-in-a-suit

This is hilarious. I was basically bullied into writing this via the GIS folks on reddit: https://skaldmaps.com/blog/2026/07/zip-codes-are-a-bad-spati... Because, well, ZIP codes aren't a spatial thing. I guess I have to update that? And the fact that this isn't free is... a decision.