Royal Mail is under fire again after investigations revealed the company failed to deliver Christmas letters and cards on time to around 16 million people – its worst non-strike Christmas performance in five years.
Findings published by Citizens Advice suggest the number of people affected by delays over Christmas 2025 was 50 per cent higher than in 2024, in what campaigners say is a continued deterioration in postal services.
Anne Pardoe, head of policy at Citizens Advice, said the level of disruption was “simply unacceptable”, particularly given that many households did not have an alternative postal provider.
“We fear there is no light at the end of the tunnel for consumers struggling with Royal Mail’s ongoing delivery failures,” she said. “If people don’t have another postal provider to choose from, the sheer amount of delays is unacceptable.”
The study, based on a survey of nearly 2,100 adults conducted by Yonder, found that 5.7 million of those affected missed receiving important correspondence, including health appointments, benefit decisions, fines and legal documents.
Pardoe warned that the problem goes far beyond late Christmas cards. “This is a worrying trend and with delivery times looming, Ofcom must take tougher action on missed targets before things get worse,” she said.
Ofcom is not applying its standard delivery targets to Royal Mail during the busy holidays, a long-standing exception that consumer groups have criticized.
Royal Mail rejected claims that its Christmas performance was poor. A spokesman said: “Independent data shows that more than 99 per cent of shipments sent by the latest recommended dates arrived in time for Christmas. This was the busiest time of the year with volumes more than doubling and we are grateful to our teams across the country who have worked incredibly hard to deliver to customers.”
The disruption occurred during the first Christmas since Czech billionaire Daniel Křetínský’s £3.6bn takeover of Royal Mail’s parent company, International Distribution Services.
In July, Ofcom approved plans to allow Royal Mail to scrap second class delivery on Saturdays and move to an alternating Monday to Friday weekday service, a change that has fueled concerns about further deterioration in reliability.
At the same time, postage costs have risen sharply. A first class stamp now costs £1.70 – more than double the price in 2020 – while a second class stamp costs 87p. According to Citizens Advice, 36 percent of respondents sent fewer Christmas cards this year because stamps were too expensive.
Royal Mail has failed to meet its Ofcom-mandated delivery targets for first class mail since 2017 and for second class mail since 2020. In October, the regulator fined the company £21 million for missing annual targets.
“Any future increases in stamp prices should be conditional on Royal Mail meeting these targets,” Pardoe said.
The challenges facing the service reflect a long-term shift in usage. A decade ago, Royal Mail delivered around 20 billion letters a year; that number has fallen to 6.7 billion and could fall to 4 billion within four years. During the same period, the number of addresses served increased by around four million.
Royal Mail also faced criticism before Christmas after the company downgraded a perk for employees and replaced books of first-class stamps with second-class stamps for employees.
Citizens Advice said the latest figures underline the need for tougher regulatory intervention and warned that without significant improvements, millions of consumers will continue to face delayed or missed deliveries of important correspondence.
