Post office branches: statistics and developments

Note: the government published its response to its consulatation on the future of the Post Office on 25 February 2026. This briefing will be updated with information from the government response in due course.

---

As of October 2025, there were around 11,638 post office branches in the UK.

The Post Office is committed to maintaining around 11,500 branches.

The government consulted on the future of the post office network between July and October 2025, and aims to respond to the consultation in early 2026.

Trends

Since 2009 the total number of post offices in the UK has remained reasonably consistent.

Types of post offices

In March 2025, there were:

• 9,080 standard agency branches (78% of the network)
• 1,669 outreach services (14% of the network)
• 823 drop & collect branches (7% of the network)
• 111 Crown or directly managed branches (1% of the network)

Crown post offices

Crown post office branches are directly managed by Post Office Limited and are also called ‘directly managed branches’. The number of Crown post office branches has fallen significantly over recent decades.

In April 2025, the Post Office announced that these branches would be franchised, so they are no longer directly managed by the Post Office Ltd. There will be at least one ‘main’-style branch within a mile of each existing Crown branch. Franchising plans have since been announced for most of the individual branches.

Drop & collect branches

Drop & collect branches focus on pre-paid parcels and bill payments, rather than providing a full post office service.

The first of these opened in late 2021 and they made up 7% of the network by March 2025.

Outreach branches

Outreach services are typically small part-time branches. There was a significant rise in the number of outreach services from 2000 to 2023, followed by a fall. In 2025, outreach branches made up 14% of the total network.

Location of post offices

Over the last decade (2015 to 2025), London has experienced the most growth in the total number of post offices, at 14%, and Scotland the greatest fall, at 11%.

Post offices in each constituency

A full list of post offices by constituency is made available to the Library by the Post Office each year. These lists are copyrighted to the Post Office and the Library is only able to provide them to Members and their staff.

A table with the number of post offices by constituency - post offices by constituency - is available to parliamentary users via SharePoint.

Further information

A data file attached at the top of this page gives trend data for overall numbers of post offices, numbers by contract type, numbers by urban and rural split and numbers by UK country and region.