United States Postal Service

:This article describes the United States Postal Service. For the band named The Postal Service see The Postal Service.

Types of postal facilities

Although its customer service centers are called post offices in regular speech, the USPS recognizes several types of postal facilities, including the following:

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• A main post office, formerly known as a general post office, is the primary postal facility in a community.
• A station or post office station is a postal facility that is not the main post office, but that is within the corporate limits of the community.
• A branch or post office branch is a postal facility that is not the main post office and that is outside the corporate limits of the community.
• A classified unit is a station or branch operated by USPS employees in a facility owned or leased by the USPS.
• A contract postal unit is a station or branch operated by a contractor, typically in a store or other place of business.
• A community post office (CPO) is a contract postal unit providing services in a small community in which other types of post office facilites have been discontinued.
• A finance unit is a station or branch that provides window services and accepts mail, but does not provide delivery.
• A processing and distribution center (P&DC) or processing and distribution facility (formerly known as a General Mail Facility) is a central mail facility that processes and dispatches incoming and outgoing mail to and from a designated service area.
• A sectional center facility is a P&DC for a desgnated geographical area defined by one or more three-digit ZIP code prefixes.

While common usage refers to all types of postal facilities as "substations," the USPS Glossary of Postal Terms does not define or even list that word.

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Temporary stations are often set up for applying pictorial cancellations.

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