What’s the price of a stamp?
A UK First Class Stamp costs £1.25p
Stamp price effective from October 2nd, 2023 – October 2023 Stamp Price Increase
The price of a first class stamp
A UK first class stamp today costs £1.25p. That’s a staggering rise of 47% in 18 months.
Despite this large rise, the postal service operator is still lobbying for a change in the Universal Service Obligation which mandates they must deliver to every UK address, six days a week.
Historical price of first class stamps
About this site
On this site we single-mindedly track stamp price inflation since decimalisation in 1971. In addition to answering the simple question how much is a first class stamp, we track and show the price of a second class stamp and the annual percentage increases of stamp prices.
The price of a stamp in the UK has risen steadily over the years. Postage stamps are a great demonstration of inflation over the years, and in fact postal services remain one of the items in the ‘basket of goods’ used to calculate Retail Price Inflation in the UK.
The Royal Mail are the Designated Universal Service Provider (“DUSP”) and they set the postage rates – but are required by Ofcom to provide a universal postal service, including delivery and collection of letters, six days per week, Monday to Saturday.
There is a cap on the price of 2nd class stamps which rises on 1st April annually. The purpose of the cap is to ensure a basic, affordable, universal postal service is available to all, especially vulnerable, consumers and that users of postal services are protected to an extent from ongoing price increases.