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Home > Guides > Refusing delivery
Yes. Hand the letter back to your mail carrier unopened, or write "refused" on it and drop it back in a mailbox, and it goes back to the sender. The letter must be unopened, and refusing it does not cancel whatever it contains: a bill you refuse still exists, and a legal notice you refuse may still count as delivered.
| How you refuse it | What to do | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| At the door | Tell the carrier you refuse it and hand it back unopened | The carrier marks it refused and returns it to the sender |
| From the mailbox | Write "REFUSED" on the unopened envelope and put it back in your mailbox with the flag up | It is picked up and sent back to the return address |
| From Canada Post | Write "Refused" on the unopened letter and hand it to a postal outlet or carrier | It goes back to the sender at no charge to you |
Once you open a letter, the postal service treats it as accepted. An unopened letter is easy to reroute: the machinery and the return address do the work. An opened one is legally yours now, and the post office will not act as your return service for it. If curiosity won, your only move is to contact the sender directly and tell them you do not want their mail.
No, and this is the part people get wrong. Refusal is a mail-routing action, not a legal one. The sender still has proof they mailed it, and in many cases they get proof you refused it. A refused bill is still a bill. A refused collection letter does not reset the collection clock. A refused court notice can actually hurt you, because courts in both the US and Canada have rules treating a refused certified or registered item as if it were delivered, on the logic that you cannot dodge notice by closing the door.
You can refuse it the same way: decline to sign, or decline the delivery slip, and the item goes back. But refusal is recorded on the tracking record, so the sender ends up with documented evidence that you were offered the letter and turned it down. That is precisely why lawyers send things certified: the refusal itself becomes part of their paper trail. If you want to know exactly how that evidence looks, our guide on refused certified mail walks through it.
Anything from a court, a government agency, or the IRS or CRA is risky to refuse. Tax agencies and courts do not need your signature to keep a deadline running. If you are not sure what a letter is, open it first: opening it just means you read it, and reading it is always better than guessing. You can still throw it away afterward. The one exception is mail addressed to a previous resident: mark it "not at this address" rather than "refused," so the carrier knows the person never lived there.
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