A letter will soon cost 1.15 euros. The framework for it is set by the state.

From 1 January 2027 a standard letter is to cost 1.15 euros instead of 0.95 euros. That is 21 per cent more, the biggest rise in over 20 years.^{[1][2][3][4][5]} The postcard rises by the same amount, the large letter by 31 per cent, the maxi letter up to 1,000 grams from 2.90 to 5.00 euros.^[1] My annoyance is not with Deutsche Post. It is with the rules by which the state calculates its postage, and with the costs the state adds for all businesses year after year.

The new prices

This is not yet final. The Federal Network Agency published its price framework as a draft on 12 October and intends to decide in November; after that it has to approve every individual price. The new prices are then to apply for two years, until the end of 2028.^[1][6]

Why it is getting more expensive

Deutsche Post points first to its volumes and costs. Board member Nikola Hagleitner: “Letter volumes have been falling markedly for years, while staff, energy and material costs are rising.” If ever fewer letters pass through the same infrastructure, the cost per letter rises. Deutsche Post also points to “rising burdens imposed by the state”, without quantifying them.^[8]

The figures confirm the first part. In 2017, 14.9 billion letters were sent in Germany, in 2025 only 9.4 billion.^[7] The Federal Network Agency sees the main reason in this: “The essential reason for rising postage is the strongly declining letter volumes.”^[6]

But behind the volumes too stands the state. The Federal Network Agency names as a reason not only digitalisation but expressly the obligation to use electronic invoices, which applies to companies from 2028.^[6] That is politically intended and sensible in itself. But the bill stays with those who still have to or want to write letters: anyone sending fewer letters pays more for each one.

Where the state does the arithmetic

How much a letter may cost is not decided by Deutsche Post alone. The Federal Network Agency calculates it, under the postal act that the Bundestag recast in 2024. That act says a profit mark-up is to be included, measured against the risk-adjusted average of the return on sales of the companies in a European share index over ten years. Costs arising solely for ecologically sustainable delivery count as efficient from the outset under the act.^[9] The monopolies commission calls this one of the federal government’s “generous provisions”: the profit mark-ups are oriented “to the returns on sales of, among others, Ferrari, L’Oréal and Adidas rather than to market-standard returns on capital”.^[10]

The act also requires the burdens from the era of the Deutsche Bundespost to be taken appropriately into account.^[9] The Federal Network Agency therefore recognises all the staff, social and pension burdens that Deutsche Post bears as legal successor to the Bundespost.^[6] Put differently: burdens from the era of the state postal service are paid for today by letter customers, through the stamp.

On top come costs the state imposes on all businesses. The CO₂ price on fuels stood at 55 euros per tonne in 2025. Since 2026 it has been auctioned in a corridor of 55 to 65 euros, and that stays in 2027; the Bundestag decided this on 15 October.^[11] At 65 euros per tonne it accounts for around 20 cents per litre of diesel, including VAT.^[12] Since December 2023 the lorry toll has contained a CO₂ surcharge of 200 euros per tonne of CO₂, and since July 2024 it has applied to lorries from 3.5 tonnes.^[13] In its parcel business Deutsche Post passes both on openly: business customers pay a “toll and CO₂ surcharge” of 19 cents per parcel.^[14]

And the wage floor is rising. In 2022 the previous coalition raised the statutory minimum wage by act from 10.45 to 12 euros. The minimum wage commission then set 12.41 and 12.82 euros, and on 1 January 2026 13.90 and on 1 January 2027 14.60 euros.^[15][16] The coalition agreement of the Union and the SPD had called 15 euros “achievable” for 2026.^[17] Deutsche Post pays under a collective agreement of its own with ver.di; it expires at the end of 2026.^[18] Anyone raising the floor politically year after year also raises the expectations above it in every round of bargaining.

What reaches the citizen

Deutsche Post reckons on around 75 cents of extra cost a month for a household.^[8] That sounds like little, and for the inflation rate on its own postage is indeed insignificant. But it shows in miniature how things run on a large scale: the state promises relief, and at the same time the costs it sets itself are rising – the CO₂ price, the toll, the wage floor, obligations to digitalise, profit mark-ups and legacy burdens in regulated prices. Every step can be explained on its own. Together they land on the citizen: at the letterbox, at the parcel, at the filling station.

How strongly the state as a whole is growing and what that costs is set out in the commentary „Der Staat wächst. Die Rechnung zahlen wir.“.

The editorial team’s assessment

The Federal Network Agency explains the largest part of the rise by the fall in letter volumes. Neither Deutsche Post nor the Federal Network Agency names the minimum wage, the CO₂ price or the toll as a reason for letter postage.^[6][8] Deutsche Post levies the toll and CO₂ surcharge in its parcel business on business customers, not on letter postage.^[14] Delivery vehicles up to 3.5 tonnes are not subject to the toll.^[13] By its own account the Federal Network Agency stayed below Deutsche Post’s demands and did not recognise several of the costs claimed.^[6]

The EU packaging regulation does not affect letter postage. Envelopes containing letters, invoices and other correspondence do not count as packaging under the EU Commission’s guidance; that is how the association of European postal operators reports it.^[19] For parcels the obligations fall on the sender who fills the packaging.

For the inflation rate postage hardly matters. In the harmonised consumer price index for Germany, postal services have a weight of 1.89 per mille.^[20] Even if all of them became 21 per cent more expensive, inflation would rise by around 0.04 percentage points. In September 2026 it stood at 3.3 per cent.^[21]

In 2025 the Post & Parcel Germany division achieved earnings before interest and taxes of 1.03 billion euros, 5.8 per cent of turnover.^[22]