The United States Postal Service requires that a green Certified Mail endorsement be visible on the top of the front and back of a piece of Certified Mail. Although the Certified Mail service requirement is embedded in the barcodes on your label, this green stripe indicates to the postal person delivering the letter that the item is Certified Mail and a Signature must be collected by USPS when delivered. This occurs even if you are not purchasing the Return Receipt Signature.
How do I get the green Certified Mail banner or markings on your Certified Mail Label or Envelope?
We have a specially designed windowed Certified Mail Envelope that we suggest you use on our website. Our envelopes are pre-approved and have the USPS-required green Certified Mail banner markings printed on the front and back side of the envelope. The envelopes also have a large full-face window which allows the Certified Mail barcodes, digital PC Postage and address information to be displayed. Our solution, which includes the Certified Mail label (8.5" x 11" PDF printed on plain paper) folded into our Certified Mail envelope has been approved by USPS mail-piece design analysts and is considered compliant for sending USPS Certified Mail.
What if you don't have our Certified Mail envelopes and want to use your own plain envelope?
If you elect to use a plain envelope instead of the Certified Mail envelope, you can still use Certified Mail Labels.com to create your label. However, It is very important that you do the following:
- Choose "Plain Envelope #10 Letter Size" as your envelope type on Step 3 of creating your label and;
- Print your label on a COLOR printer. Choosing "Plain Envelope #10 Letter Size (Prints Green Banner)" on Step 3 will generate an 8.5" x 11" PDF Certified Mail label which will INCLUDE the green USPS Certified Mail markings at the top. You will need to send this label to your printer IN COLOR and then affix the paper to the OUTSIDE of the envelope with the green banner being visible on the top of the front and back of your letter. We suggest you use a glue stick but you can also use tape. Just take care to not tape over any of the bar codes and be sure your label is securely affixed to your envelope so that is is not torn off by the USPS Sorting machines.
If you already created your Certified Mail Label and it did not print with the green Certified Mail banner, you have three options:
- You can Refund/cancel your label and create a new one. To Refund/cancel a label go to the red navigation bar > Reports > Refund Postage and click "Refund" to the right of the record that you would like to cancel. Be SURE that you are Refunding the correct one. If you accidentally cancel/refund a letter that has been mailed, all your tracking data will be canceled. USPS may take up to 15 business days to return the Postage to your account.
- Click here to download green Certified Mail banner that you can print in color and affix to your letter after you have affixed the Certified Mail label.
- Do you have any of the old-fashioned Certified Mail forms (PS Form 3800)? If so, you can use the part of the form that folds over the top of your envelope. However, BE SURE YOU REMOVE ANY BARCODES AND CERTIFIED NUMBERS ON THIS FORM. You ONLY want to use the green banner portion to be compliant with the USPS requirements.
What if you're mailing a parcel and not a letter?
If you're mailing a parcel you'll need to affix the label to the front of your mail piece and then affix a USPS 3800-n sticker to the left of the label. This is only applicable if your mail piece is Certified Mail.
