A US mailbox at a real street address, handled by real people

What your US virtual mailbox address includes

Your address is our building, 1215 Main Street, Unit 115, in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, followed by your own PMB number. PMB stands for private mailbox. USPS calls a business like ours a commercial mail receiving agency, or CMRA, and the rules we work under sit in the Domestic Mail Manual, section 508.1.8.

The word virtual only describes how you see your mail. The paper is real, the mailbox doors are real, and so are the clerks who sign for parcels and feed pages into the scanner. You see every item online the day it arrives and decide what happens next, from your account or the mailbox app.

We have run this mail room at the same address since 2007 and handle mail for more than 1,500 customers. Tewksbury is in Middlesex County, about 20 miles north of Boston off I-495 and I-93. Local customers drive in for pickup, while most customers abroad never set foot in the building.

Four services run from that one address. Each has its own page with the full details, and the next four sections tell you what each one does and who it suits.

Mailbox rental with a real street address

Our mailbox rental is the base of every plan: a private mailbox in the Tewksbury mail room that takes letters and packages from USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL, Amazon and other couriers. Every item gets a photo alert the same day, so you know a parcel landed without driving over to look.

Mail then waits in free storage while you decide what to do with it: 30 days on Personal, 60 on Business and 90 on Virtual Office. Local customers walk in during office hours and leave with their mail. Others never see the box and run everything from a laptop. Junk mail is shredded at no charge.

Size limits follow the plan. Business takes letters and boxes up to 1 cubic foot, and Virtual Office takes packages up to 1.5 cubic feet. If you expect furniture, monitors or other large boxes, call us before you choose a plan.

US mail forwarder to 190+ countries

As a US mail forwarder, we ship letters and packages from your mailbox to 190+ countries. USPS and FedEx are the standard options. You see the carrier and the postage quote before anything leaves, and nothing ships until you approve both.

The cheapest way to forward is to scan first and ship later. Say you live in Valencia and, over three weeks, eight letters and three small parcels arrive for you. You ask for scans of the two letters that matter, a bank notice and a tax letter, and read them on screen. The other six letters and the three parcels wait in storage, then leave together in one box with one customs declaration and one quote, instead of nine separate shipments.

Combining items that way, called package consolidation, is free on every plan. Transit time and duties depend on the carrier and on customs in the destination country, so we never promise a delivery date or a customs result.

Some US stores refuse foreign cards or will not ship abroad. For those, the Shopper Assistant buys the item for you for a $79.99 service fee per order, plus a 10% buying commission, plus shipping and any duties or insurance. The details are on our US personal shopper service page.

Massachusetts registered agent, included with Business

Every Massachusetts LLC and corporation, and every out-of-state company registered there, must keep an agent with a Massachusetts street address. A PO box does not qualify. State law calls this a resident agent (M.G.L. c. 156C, section 5 for LLCs), and the LLC certificate of organization asks for the agent's name and street address in the commonwealth.

Our Massachusetts registered agent service is included free with the Business Mailbox plan and with the Virtual Office; it has no separate price. When a process server or a state envelope arrives during business hours, a clerk accepts it at the counter, logs it and scans it to you the same business day. The Business plan also sends annual report reminders, so a state deadline does not slide past while you are busy.

Two limits to know. Papers are accepted Monday to Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern, and accepting them is not legal advice. If court papers arrive, talk to a lawyer promptly; our page on missed service of process explains what is at stake. This is general information, not legal advice.

Expats mailbox for Americans abroad

An expats mailbox gives you one US address that stays put while you live in Lisbon, Dubai or Tokyo. Your bank, your card issuer, the IRS and Social Security keep writing to the address on file. When a replacement debit card or a tax notice arrives, it is photographed the same day, and you can have the letter scanned instead of waiting weeks for the paper.

Signing up from abroad happens by video. The Form 1583 signature must be witnessed by our staff or by a notary public commissioned in a US state, territory, possession or the District of Columbia. USPS allows that notary session to take place live over audio and video, which is why most customers abroad use a remote online notary. A local notary in Spain or Japan does not meet the rule.

Your home address abroad goes on the form, and your second ID has to show it. A foreign passport works as the photo ID. Paper checks that land in your box can be deposited to your US bank account for $3 per check, and tax forms can be scanned on request. For tax season, read how to file US taxes from overseas with a US mailbox.

Plans and prices

Three plans, three terms, one address. Every 1-year term includes a free month. There is no month-to-month plan, no setup fee and no contract beyond the term you buy.

Cancel any time; service runs to the end of the paid term, and refunds follow our Terms of Use. Heavy scanners can add Digital Mail Scanning, our mail scanning service add-on, for $29.95 for 3 months, $69.95 for 6 months or $149.95 for a year. The full fee list is on our virtual mailbox pricing page.

What a year costs, term by term

Short terms cost more over a year. Here is the same 12 months bought three ways, using the prices above.

Pick by what arrives, not by price alone. Personal suits one person who mostly gets letters. Business is the most popular plan because it adds the Massachusetts registered agent, signature-required deliveries and customer returns handling. Virtual Office fits a team of up to 5 with a steady stream of documents to scan.

How it works, in four steps

1. Choose a plan and check out. It takes about 15 minutes online, with any major card, from any country.
2. Fill in USPS Form 1583. The Application for Delivery of Mail Through Agent names you and names us as your agent. Each adult who uses a personal mailbox files a separate form.
3. Show two IDs and have your signature witnessed. You need one government-issued photo ID and one document that shows your home address. Our staff can witness in person, or a US notary can, including a remote online notary by video.
4. Start using the address. It goes live once the form is verified, usually within 1 to 2 business days of a complete, matching application. Then update your bank, employer, card issuers and online stores.

For help with each field on the form, see how to fill out Form 1583. To move your accounts over in a sensible order, use our guide on how to change your US address.

Why applications get held up, and the fix

Most delays come from a mismatch between the form and the IDs. These are the common ones.

IDs have to stay current after you sign up, too. We certify to USPS every quarter, by January 15, April 15, July 15 and October 15, that our forms are current and IDs unexpired, so when your ID expires we will ask for a new one. If an application was turned down, the Form 1583 rejected guide covers the usual fixes.

Inside our mail room: one letter from arrival to scan

Here is what happens to a single envelope. Take a hypothetical: your bank mails you a replacement debit card and a letter about your account while you live in Lisbon.

1. Mail arrives from USPS, FedEx, UPS, DHL or Amazon.
2. A clerk logs it to your PMB number and photographs it.
3. You get a photo alert the same day.
4. You decide: scan it, forward it after approving the carrier and quote, or hold it for pickup or shredding.

Arrival

The envelope comes in with the day's USPS mail, while parcels from FedEx, UPS, DHL and Amazon come across the counter. A clerk reads the address line, finds your PMB number and checks it against your Form 1583 record. An envelope with your name but no PMB number takes longer, because it has to be matched by hand.

Logging and the photo

The clerk logs the item under your mailbox and photographs the front of the envelope. The photo reaches you the same day, so you see the sender and the size of the item before you decide anything. Then the envelope goes into your numbered box.

Your instruction

You choose one of four things: scan it, forward it, hold it for pickup or shred it. Virtual Office customers can also set standing scan-on-arrival rules, such as scanning everything from one bank, so routine mail never waits for a click.

The scan

When you ask for a scan, a clerk takes the envelope out of your box, opens it, scans each page and sends you the PDF. Pages count against your monthly allowance: 10 on Personal, 15 on Business and 20 on Virtual Office. In the Lisbon example, a two-page letter uses two scan pages, and the card stays in your box until you ask us to forward it.

Signature mail, checks and junk

Signature-required deliveries are included on the Business and Virtual Office plans. When a certified letter arrives, the clerk signs, photographs the envelope and any green return-receipt card, and flags the item in your alert. Our page on certified mail at a virtual mailbox covers the details. Checks can be deposited to your US bank account for $3 per check, and junk mail is shredded free.

For the security questions customers ask most, read are virtual mailboxes safe.

Who uses a GetMyUSMail address

The same mail room serves very different people. These are the patterns we see most.

How it compares with a PO Box or a shipping-store mailbox

All three give your mail somewhere to land. The differences show up when a courier parcel arrives, when you live abroad, or when you need to read a letter without being there.

A shipping-store mailbox is a CMRA too, so the address format and the Form 1583 rules are the same as ours. The difference is what happens after the mail lands: many are set up around walking in to collect, and scanning or international forwarding depends on the store. Our guide to PMB vs PO Box covers the address side in more depth, and virtual mailbox vs UPS Store vs PO Box puts all three options side by side.

What a mailbox address can't do

A mailbox solves mail. It does not solve residency, identity or banking rules, and you should know where the edges are before you change an address on file.

Banks deserve a closer look. Federal rules require a bank to collect "a residential or business street address" for each individual customer (31 CFR 1020.220). That is why a bank may want your home address on file and accept the mailbox only as the place to send mail. Some banks, card issuers and government programs refuse commercial mail receiving agency addresses altogether.

Form 1583 also states that USPS may check that you live or do business at the home or business address you list. The mailbox keeps your home address off packages and invoices. It does not make you anonymous to the Postal Service.