USPS Form 1583: how to fill out, sign, and verify ID for a private mailbox

What is USPS Form 1583?

PS Form 1583 is the Postal Service form that lets a private business accept your mail as your agent. Its full name is Application for Delivery of Mail Through Agent, and the current edition on about.usps.com is dated June 2024. Without a current form on file, the agency isn’t allowed to receive mail in your name.

The rules behind it are in the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM) at section 508.1.8. The DMM defines a commercial mail receiving agency (CMRA) as a business that, in whole or in part, accepts delivery of US Mail on behalf of another person or entity as a business service. The CMRA receives your mail and either holds it for pickup or remails it to you with new postage.

People also call it “ps form 1583,” “form 1583,” or “the 1583.” It isn’t the PO Box application; a PO Box rented from the Post Office uses PS Form 1093 instead.

Who needs to fill out Form 1583?

Anyone who wants mail delivered to a private mailbox (PMB) at a CMRA needs the form. Under DMM 508.1.8.1, that covers more than the familiar mailbox store in a strip mall:

• Private mailbox stores that rent numbered boxes at a street address.
• Virtual mailbox services that receive your mail at a physical address for you.
• Office business centers, which DMM 508.1.8.1 says count as CMRAs for Postal Service purposes.
• Reshipping or redelivery businesses that operate primarily to forward mail and parcels to customers, which the DMM also treats as CMRAs.

How do you fill out PS Form 1583?

The CMRA gives you the form or tells you where to get it; the official PDF is at about.usps.com/forms/ps1583.pdf. The CMRA completes its own blocks, including its delivery address and your PMB number, and you complete the rest. Typical steps:

1. Get the form and your PMB number from the CMRA you chose.
2. Check the type of service: Residential/Personal Use or Business/Organization Use.
3. Enter your name, phone, email, and your home street address. The form says this address must match the address ID you list.
4. List anyone you authorize to pick up mail for the box, with that person’s own photo ID and address ID, if you’re naming one.
5. If mail will be forwarded, shipped, or emailed elsewhere, complete the transfer section with that address.
6. For business use, add the business name, type, address, phone, and place of registration (the county and state, or the country if foreign).
7. Record your photo ID and address ID details and attach copies, as the form instructions direct.
8. Sign in front of the CMRA’s owner, manager, or authorized employee, or have a notary witness your signature (see the signing section below).
9. Give the completed form and ID copies to the CMRA, not to the Post Office.

What IDs are acceptable for Form 1583?

You need two forms of current, unexpired ID. One must be a photo ID; the other must prove the address you wrote on the form. DMM 508.1.8.3 points to DMM 608.10, and the June 2024 form lists the choices. A driver’s license can count as either your photo ID or your address ID, but the form says it can’t count as both.

Does Form 1583 have to be notarized?

Not always. Under DMM 508.1.8.3, you must sign or confirm your signature in the physical presence of the CMRA owner, manager, or an authorized employee, or in their virtual presence through real-time audio and video. The alternative is to acknowledge your signature before a notary public commissioned in a US state, territory, possession, or the District of Columbia, again either in person or by real-time audio and video.

The live-video option was confirmed in a USPS final rule published in the Federal Register on May 2, 2024, effective May 1, 2024, which clarified CMRA notary responsibilities for the addressee’s signature. In its response to comments, USPS said the rule allows applicants to sign or confirm their signature in the physical or real-time audio-and-video presence of the CMRA owner or manager. Which methods a particular CMRA offers is up to that business, so ask before you sign.

The form also carries a certification: anyone who gives false or misleading information or leaves out requested information may face criminal or civil penalties, including fines and imprisonment.

Who has to sign Form 1583?

The rule is one form per adult, with a few specific cases:

• Each adult: for residential or personal use, DMM 508.1.8.3 requires a separate PS Form 1583 for each addressee of the PMB.
• Spouses: each spouse completes and signs a separate form and provides their own primary and secondary IDs.
• Minors: a parent or guardian can receive a minor’s mail by listing each minor’s name on the parent’s or guardian’s form; minors don’t file their own.
• Authorized individuals: someone you name to pick up your mail goes on your form with their own photo ID and address ID.
• Businesses: for business or organization use, an officer must sign and give their title, and the form tells you to list the members who will receive mail at the PMB. Each person listed must show two valid IDs to the Postal Service on request.
• Court-ordered protected individuals: the form asks about this status and, if you answer yes, says to attach a copy of the court order.

Can you complete Form 1583 online?

Partly. USPS’s rules describe a process run through the CMRA, not a form you file with USPS online yourself. Under the Postal Service’s 2023 CMRA rule (effective July 1, 2023), the CMRA enters your form information and uploads a clear copy of each ID into the USPS CMRA Customer Registration Database (CRD), moving the process away from paper filing. In that rule, USPS said it requires either that the form be notarized or that a CMRA employee verify the applicant’s identity.

So a virtual mailbox company may let you fill in the form on its website and upload your ID copies there, then meet a notary or its own staff by live video. What you can’t skip is the signature step in someone’s real or real-time-video presence. If the CMRA later finds an ID image unclear, USPS may require it to collect a replacement.

What does the CMRA do with your Form 1583?

DMM 508.1.8.3 puts several duties on the CMRA:

• Verify your documents: the CMRA confirms you live or do business at the permanent address on the form. If the application doesn’t match the IDs, it must deny the application.
• Record the IDs and your full CMRA delivery address on the form, without altering the form itself. Modified forms are invalid.
• Enter your information and upload the ID images to the USPS CRD, and keep at least a digital copy of the completed form at its location for inspection by USPS and postal inspectors.
• Keep the form current: if your information changes, you must complete a new form with the CMRA.
• When you close the box: neither you nor the CMRA files a change-of-address order with USPS. The CMRA records the termination date, keeps the form at least 6 months, and must remail your mail for at least 6 months, with new postage, to an address you provide.

How do you write a PMB address after Form 1583 is approved?

Mail to a CMRA must show your box number with “PMB” or the “#” sign. Publication 28, section 285, says use of any other identifier is prohibited, and DMM 508.1.8.3 says mail missing it may be returned endorsed “Undeliverable as Addressed, Missing PMB or # Sign.” Don’t write “PO Box” for a private mailbox.

Two DMM formats work. The four-line form puts PMB 234 or #234 on its own line between your name and the street address. The three-line form puts it on the street line, such as JORDAN AVERY, then 10 MAIN ST PMB 234, then HERNDON VA 22071-2716. If the CMRA’s own street address already has a suite or other secondary unit, DMM 508.1.8.3 says to use “PMB” in the three-line format, such as 10 MAIN ST STE 11 PMB 234, and never to combine the two numbers as STE 11-234.

• How to write a PO Box address (private mailboxes) ↗
• What is a mailing address? ↗

Should you mail Form 1583 to USPS?

No. The form goes to the CMRA, and the CMRA submits it to USPS through the registration database. The form lists CMRAprogram@usps.gov for questions to the Postal Service.

Because the completed form carries your ID details and copies of your government photo ID, send it only through the channel your CMRA specifies. IRIS’s PS Form 1583 template page links the official PDF and says to complete and sign it outside IRIS. IRIS’s acceptable-use policy doesn’t allow uploads containing government identifiers or ID copies without a written agreement, so a completed Form 1583 with ID copies isn’t something to send through IRIS. IRIS is an independent print-and-mail service, not USPS, and it doesn’t offer PO Boxes, mail receiving, scanning, holding, or forwarding.

• PS Form 1583 template ↗
• IRIS acceptable-use policy ↗