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No. Depositing anything into someone else's mailbox yourself is illegal in the US, stamp or not: only the postal carrier may place mail in the box. Handing the letter to your neighbor in person is perfectly legal. When in doubt, just mail it through USPS and let the carrier do the last step.
People assume the stamp is the point of the mailbox rule, but it is not. The stamp pays for USPS to transport and deliver the letter. The mailbox restriction is a separate federal rule: the box is reserved for mail placed there by authorized postal personnel. A stamp on the envelope does not turn you into an authorized postal employee, so dropping it in the box yourself breaks the rule either way. The carrier who finds an unstamped or hand-placed item in a box is supposed to remove it.
| What you do | Legal? |
|---|---|
| Hand the letter to your neighbor in person | Yes |
| Slide it under their door or tape it to the door | Yes |
| Put it in their mailbox, stamped or not | No |
| Put it in their mailbox with the flag up | Still no |
| Mail it through USPS addressed to them | Yes, and the carrier delivers it to their box |
This is the one case that confuses everyone. If your neighbor's mail lands in your box, the right move is to hand it to your carrier, leave it in your own box with a note for the carrier, or hand it to your neighbor directly. What you should not do is walk over and put it in their mailbox yourself, which is technically the same offense. In practice, nobody gets fined for a good-faith mail return between neighbors, but the lawful channels are the carrier or the neighbor's hand.
Yes, federal law provides for fines against anyone who places mailable matter without postage into a mailbox, and the mailbox restriction covers even stamped items placed by non-carriers. Prosecutions of ordinary neighbors are essentially nonexistent: the rule exists to stop businesses from stuffing mailboxes with unposted flyers, which undercuts postal revenue. Still, the law is the law, and the two-minute walk to hand the letter over in person keeps you on the right side of it.
Canada Post's community mailboxes are federal property with restricted access, and only Canada Post may place items in the compartments, so the practical answer is the same: do not deposit things into someone else's box yourself. For rural roadside boxes, hand the item to the person or drop it in a Canada Post collection box. When you are unsure, mailing it properly costs one stamp and removes all doubt.
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