Mailing Matters: What Move Update Means

The USPS offers some leniency, not assessing penalties if fewer than five errors are found during verification, or if 70 percent or more of the addresses with change of address forms filed have been updated.

The time to worry is if more than 30 percent of the addresses that should have been updated were not, as the mail now becomes non-compliant. For example, someone with a 1,000-piece mailing with 100 moves on file must update at least 70 of the pieces with the new addresses. If they only update 60 of the 100 pieces, then they fall below the 70 percent threshold by 10 percent and, therefore, 10 percent of the entire mailing will be assessed with the $0.07 per piece charge.