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Change Service Requested is an instruction printed on an envelope telling the postal service to throw away an undeliverable letter and send the sender the recipient's new address electronically. The letter itself is not forwarded and not returned. It is the right endorsement when you want the new address more than the letter itself.
An endorsement is a short printed instruction on the front of the envelope, placed below the return address, that tells the postal service what to do when the letter cannot be delivered as addressed. Most letters carry no endorsement at all, and then the default rules apply: first-class mail is forwarded if the recipient filed a change of address, and returned if it cannot be delivered. Change Service Requested overrides that default in a specific way. If the recipient moved and left a forwarding address, USPS discards the physical letter and sends the sender a change-of-address notice through its electronic system instead.
The "electronic" part is what sets this endorsement apart from its older cousins. Traditional endorsements return the information on a physical form attached to the returned piece, which takes days. Change Service Requested delivers the new address as data, which a bulk mailer can feed straight into its address list. That is why it is mostly a business tool: companies mailing statements, magazines, or marketing pieces use it to clean their mailing lists without handling returned envelopes.
| Endorsement | If the recipient moved | What the sender gets |
|---|---|---|
| No endorsement (default) | Letter forwarded for a time, then returned | The letter back, eventually |
| Address Service Requested | Letter forwarded, notice of new address sent | Forwarded letter delivered, plus the new address |
| Return Service Requested | Letter not forwarded, returned with new address attached | The letter back, with the new address on it |
| Change Service Requested | Letter discarded, notice sent electronically | The new address as data, no letter back |
| Forwarding Service Requested | Letter forwarded, notice sent if it cannot be forwarded | Delivery, or a notice if forwarding fails |
The pattern to remember: "Return" means the piece comes back, "Address" means you get the new address and the piece still goes forward, and "Change" means you get the new address as data and the piece is gone. Picking the wrong one has real consequences. A company that prints Change Service Requested on a time-sensitive notice, such as a payment reminder, will never see that notice again if the recipient moved, and the recipient will never see it either. The sender learns the new address, but the message itself is lost.
Change Service Requested fits mailings where the address list matters more than any single piece: monthly statements, newsletters, catalogues, and marketing mail sent to thousands of people. The sender accepts losing individual pieces in exchange for clean address data at scale, and the cost of re-mailing to the corrected address is low. It also suits mail that becomes worthless quickly, such as a coupon for a sale that ends this week: forwarding it to a new address after the sale ends helps nobody.
It is a poor fit for anything irreplaceable or urgent: legal notices, tax documents, contracts, or a letter to one specific person. For those, Return Service Requested or a tracked service is safer, because you get the letter back if delivery fails and you know exactly what happened. Some senders also avoid Change Service Requested for privacy reasons, since it generates a data trail of who moved where that must be handled carefully.
No. These endorsements are a USPS system, and they do not apply to mail inside Canada. Canada Post has its own redirection service: when a Canadian moves and buys mail redirection, their mail is forwarded to the new address for a set period, and the sender is not automatically told the new address. A sender in Canada who wants to know a recipient moved must rely on returned mail or on the recipient telling them. If you mail from Canada to the United States, the USPS endorsement printed on the envelope can still apply once the letter enters the US system, but you should confirm the treatment with the carrier before relying on it.
LetterAgent prints letters in a standard double-window envelope with the recipient's address showing through one window and the sender's address through the other, and does not offer custom envelope endorsements as a standard option. If an endorsement matters for your mailing, ask your AI assistant about it when you describe the job, before approving the quoted price, so you know what the letter will carry. For most personal letters, the default handling, forwarding when possible and returning when not, is the right choice anyway.
Ready to mail it? Send your letter with LetterAgent: describe it to your AI assistant, approve the exact quoted price, and it is printed and mailed.
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