Amazon is now the largest parcel carrier in the United States. It delivered 6.7 billion parcels in 2025, up 9.8 percent, passing the US Postal Service at 6.6 billion, which fell 8.3 percent. UPS handled 4.4 billion, down 8.6 percent, and FedEx 3.6 billion, up 5.9 percent. The carrier that overtook the Postal Service is not a carrier in the traditional sense at all: it mostly delivers its own demand.
The number I keep coming back to is a different one. Before the pandemic, UPS, FedEx and USPS handled 85 percent of US domestic parcel volume. By 2025 that share was 61 percent of roughly 23.9 billion annual deliveries. A quarter of the market moved to somebody else inside five years, and if your shipping strategy still assumes three national options, it is built on a market that no longer exists.
The largest US parcel carriers by volume, ranked
| # | Carrier | 2025 volume | Change | Network type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Amazon | 6.7 bn parcels | +9.8% | Captive, primarily own demand |
| 2 | USPS | 6.6 bn pieces | −8.3% | Universal service, every address |
| 3 | UPS | 4.4 bn | −8.6% | Integrated air and ground |
| 4 | FedEx | 3.6 bn | +5.9% | Integrated air and ground |
| 5 | Alternative carriers combined | 2.6 bn | +13% | Regional and metro networks |
That fifth line is the one to read twice. The alternative segment, which includes UniUni, Veho, Gofo, Jitsu, SpeedX, OnTrac and Better Trucks, grew 13 percent while two of the three incumbents shrank by 8.3 percent each. As a block it is now within touching distance of FedEx's domestic parcel count.
Amazon's crossover, and what it does not mean
Amazon passing USPS is a genuine milestone and a partly misleading one. Most of those 6.7 billion parcels are Amazon's own orders moving through Amazon's own network, which is optimised around its own catalogue, density and delivery promise rather than around your shipping profile.
That said, the caveat is weakening. Through 2026 Amazon has been opening the network to third-party volume in the way it once opened its computing capacity, and analysts read the strategy as a deliberate AWS-style move rather than opportunistic backfill. If it continues, the largest network in the country becomes a genuinely contestable option rather than a competitor you can only feel indirectly. For now treat it as an option worth quoting rather than a default, and watch how much capacity it actually releases in your zones.
USPS is still the network nobody replaces
The Postal Service's decline in volume obscures its structural role: it reaches every address in the country under a universal service obligation, which is why final-mile handoff products still exist and why rural coverage is where alternative carriers stop. The financial picture is the part to watch, with a net loss reported at around USD 9 billion for its 2025 financial year, because so many other carriers' cheap lightweight products depend on postal economics holding. We have tracked that pattern in our reporting on the USPS volume and financial downturn.
One measurement note, because the two figures circulate together and contradict each other. USPS reports on a financial year ending in September, which put its parcel volume near 6.84 billion pieces, while calendar-year trackers place it around 6.6 billion. Both are right on their own basis, and the ranking above uses the calendar-year basis so that every carrier is measured over the same twelve months.
Anyone building a low-cost lightweight strategy is, directly or through a consolidator, building on postal infrastructure. Changes to postal entry rules therefore land on parcel programmes as well as on freight, which is what made the reworked US postal entry process and Entry Type 13 a shipping problem rather than a customs footnote.
The global ranking looks nothing like the US one
Measured worldwide, the American league table is a regional table. SF Express moved roughly 8.26 billion parcels in the first half of 2025 on its own monthly disclosures, and it is not even the largest Chinese operator by volume: the tongda group of carriers, ZTO, YTO, STO and Yunda, run higher parcel counts on thinner margins. China is the largest parcel market on the planet and is expected to be the first country to pass 100 billion parcels in a single year.
Resist the temptation to read those numbers straight across. A Chinese half-year against a US full year is not a comparison, and the domestic Chinese parcel is a different product from a US residential delivery in weight, distance and price. What the figures do support is narrower and still useful: the volume centre of this industry is in China, so any list of the world's largest parcel carriers built only from Western names is measuring the wrong market, and the operational techniques that reach Europe and North America, from route-density automation to locker-first delivery, tend to be proven at Chinese volumes first.
Cross-border is where the two worlds meet, and that is where regulation has been reshaping economics fastest. Low-value import rules on both sides of the Atlantic have been rewritten inside a year, and duty per item changes the landed cost of exactly the parcels these networks were built to carry.
Volume is not the same as usable capacity
A ranking by parcels tells you who is big. It does not tell you who can carry your parcels well. Four things separate the two.
Density is the first. A carrier's cost per stop depends on how many parcels it drops per mile in your delivery area, which is why a regional carrier can beat a national one in its home metro and lose badly outside it. Injection points come second: how close you can hand off to the carrier's line haul determines whether you are paying for their network or your own. Coverage completeness is third, and it is the usual reason a cheap regional programme still needs a national fallback for rural addresses.
Fourth is surcharge structure. Headline rates converge across the market; accessorials do not. Residential, delivery-area, oversize, peak-season and fuel surcharges are where the real price of a parcel programme sits, and they are also where the fragmenting market has created genuine negotiating room. The competitive context our earlier analysis of a shifting parcel carrier market described has, if anything, intensified.
How to use a fragmenting market
- Run more than one carrier. A dual or multi-carrier setup is now table stakes, and it is the only structure that turns the 13 percent growth in alternatives into leverage on your rates.
- Buy density, not brand. Compare carriers zone by zone against your own address mix rather than on a national rate card.
- Audit accessorials quarterly. Surcharge tables change more often than base rates and account for a large share of the invoice.
- Test regional injection. Moving line haul yourself into a regional carrier's sort can beat a national zone-based rate on dense lanes.
- Protect rural coverage. Keep a universal-service fallback for the addresses regional networks do not serve economically.
- Check dimensional rules per carrier. Divisors and minimum billable weights differ, and the same parcel can bill differently across two carriers at identical published rates.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the largest parcel carrier in the United States?
Amazon, with 6.7 billion parcels delivered in 2025, ahead of USPS at 6.6 billion, UPS at 4.4 billion and FedEx at 3.6 billion. Amazon's volume is mostly its own orders rather than capacity sold to third-party shippers.
Who is the largest parcel carrier in the world?
By volume the leaders are Chinese, and it is not SF Express: the tongda operators, ZTO, YTO, STO and Yunda, carry higher parcel counts. SF moved around 8.26 billion parcels in the first half of 2025, and China is the largest national parcel market, expected to be first past 100 billion parcels in a year. Cross-market comparisons need care, because reporting periods and what counts as a parcel differ.
Why are UPS and FedEx volumes falling?
UPS lost 8.6 percent of volume in 2025 while FedEx actually grew 5.9 percent; the shared pressure is Amazon's captive network and the regional alternatives, which grew 13 percent as a block. The three former majors now handle about 61 percent of US domestic parcels, down from 85 percent before the pandemic.
Are regional parcel carriers cheaper than national ones?
Often within their core service area, because their cost per stop benefits from local density. They are rarely cheaper for sparse or rural addresses, which is why most programmes pair a regional carrier with a national or postal fallback.
Parcel volumes are reported on different bases by different sources: carriers count pieces, indexes count shipments, and national totals vary with whether letters, packets and returns are included, which is why US market totals appear between roughly 23 and 24 billion depending on the source, and why USPS appears at both 6.6 and 6.84 billion depending on whether the period is a calendar or a financial year. Figures here describe calendar-year 2025 for US carriers and the first half of 2025 for SF Express, and should be checked against the latest carrier disclosures before use in a rate negotiation.