Federal Mail Theft Law: Why Stealing Packages Can Be a Federal Crime

The law in one breath Stealing mail is not petty theft — it’s a federal crime, and it has been for generations. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1708, taking mail from a mailbox, a porch delivery made by USPS, a mail carrier, or a post office can mean up to five years in federal prison — and so can knowingly keeping or buying stolen mail. It doesn’t matter whether the envelope held a gift card or a birthday note: the crime is stealing the mail, not the value inside. That’s why the porch pirate grabbing a USPS package is playing a far more dangerous game than they think.

Type

Federal crime

Statute

18 U.S.C. § 1708

Max penalty

5 years

Investigated by

Postal Inspectors

The Story

Protecting the mail is one of the oldest jobs the federal government has — older than the Constitution itself.

1772Benjamin Franklin, running the colonial post, appoints a “surveyor” to police the mail system — the seed of what becomes the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the country’s oldest federal law enforcement agency.

1800sMail is how money moves — cash, checks, contracts — so Congress writes mail theft into federal criminal law early, with penalties that treated robbing the mail as an attack on national infrastructure. Because it was.

1909Congress consolidates federal crimes into the modern criminal code; the mail-theft provisions take the shape that, with updates, becomes today’s § 1708.

2000sIdentity theft turns stolen mail into raw material — bank statements, pre-approved cards, checks to “wash.” Mail theft prosecution becomes a front line of the identity-crime fight.

TODAYOnline shopping puts packages on every porch, and every USPS delivery among them sits under this statute. The mailbox on your street is still, legally, federal territory.

What the Law Actually Covers

The statute casts a wide net, in plain English: 1. Taking mail — from almost anywhere in the mail’s journey. Out of a mailbox, a post office, a mail carrier’s hands or vehicle, or any authorized depositoryAuthorized depository: any place designated for U.S. mail — your mailbox, a building’s mail room or parcel locker, a collection box. The law protects the mail wherever the postal system puts it. — including packages USPS has delivered. 2. Opening, hiding, or destroying stolen mail. The crime doesn’t require keeping the goods — pilfering an envelope and tossing it counts too. 3. Receiving stolen mail. Knowingly buying, holding, or possessing mail that was stolen is its own federal offense — the law reaches the buyer of the stolen package, not just the person who ran off the porch with it. 4. Penalties with real teeth. Fines and up to five years in federal prison — per offense, and regardless of what the mail was worth. A stolen $5 envelope and a stolen $500 package sit under the same statute.

“Whoever steals, takes, or abstracts… any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail… shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”— 18 U.S.C. § 1708 (condensed)

What It Means for You

✓ BECAUSE OF THIS LAW

Theft of your USPS-delivered mail and packages is a federal crime, whatever the value
You can report it to federal investigators — the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, online in minutes
Whoever knowingly keeps or buys your stolen mail is committing a crime too
Mailbox “fishing” for checks and cards is squarely federal territory
Your report helps map repeat offenders — mail thieves are almost never one-time actors

✗ THE LAW DOESN’T MEAN

Every porch package is covered — a box delivered only by FedEx, UPS, or a retailer’s own drivers isn’t “mail” under § 1708; state porch-piracy laws pick those up
Federal charges every time — most porch thefts are prosecuted under state law; federal cases tend to target repeat offenders, rings, and mailbox fishing
Your money comes back through this statute — it punishes the thief; your refund runs through the seller and your card
You should confront anyone — report, hand over camera footage, and let investigators do the dangerous part

Questions People Ask About This Law

Someone stole a package off my porch. Is that really a federal crime?

If USPS delivered it, it can be — packages moved through the postal system are “mail” under the statute, and courts have applied it to items taken after delivery to your authorized spot. If a private carrier delivered it, the federal statute doesn’t apply, but state theft and porch-piracy laws do. Practical version: report it either way — local police always, and the Postal Inspection Service when USPS was involved.

How do I report mail theft, and does anything actually happen?

Two reports, ten minutes total: your local police (online in most cities — you want the report number for your seller and card dispute) and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service at uspis.gov. Will agents recover your specific box? Rarely. But inspectors work patterns — a cluster of reports on one street is how mail-theft rings get caught, and your report is a data point in that map.

Do porch pirates actually get charged federally?

Sometimes — and when they do, it’s serious. Day-to-day porch thefts usually run through state court, but federal prosecutors take the cases with scale: organized theft rings, people who follow mail trucks, mailbox fishing operations, and thieves who target checks and cards for identity fraud. The five-year ceiling exists precisely for them.

What’s “mailbox fishing,” and why does everyone suddenly warn about checks?

Fishing is lowering a sticky trap into a blue collection box to pull out envelopes — hunting for checks to chemically “wash” and rewrite. It’s a § 1708 crime plus a stack of fraud charges, and it’s the reason for the modern advice: hand checks to a carrier or counter rather than dropping them in an outdoor box overnight, and use pen ink that resists washing.

My mail was stolen and now I’m worried about identity theft. What do I do?

Move on two tracks. Track one, the theft: police report plus USPIS report. Track two, your identity: if bank documents, cards, or checks were in that mail, alert your bank, watch statements, and consider a free credit freeze with the three bureaus — and if fraud actually appears, IdentityTheft.gov builds your recovery plan step by step. Fast beats perfect here.

Words in This Law, Explained

Mail matter — anything moving through or delivered by the postal system: letters, cards, and yes, packages.

Authorized depository — anywhere designated for U.S. mail: your mailbox, a building mail room, a collection box.

Receipt of stolen mail — knowingly possessing or buying stolen mail; a separate federal offense that reaches beyond the original thief.

Postal Inspector — a federal agent of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, the country’s oldest federal law enforcement agency.

Mailbox fishing — pulling mail from collection boxes with improvised tools, usually hunting checks to wash; a signature modern mail-theft crime.

Check washing — chemically erasing and rewriting a stolen check; the fraud that makes fished mail valuable.

Laws Connected to This One

State porch-piracy lawsThe state-law layer that covers every carrier — FedEx, UPS, and retail drivers included — with a growing list of states making package theft its own named crime.Read more → When the package says “delivered” but never arrivedThe victim’s playbook: who owes you a replacement or refund, in what order to ask, and the messages that work.Read more → The Fair Credit Billing ActHow you actually get your money back while the criminal law deals with the thief — the chargeback’s legal spine.Read more →

What’s Still Moving

The edges to watch as of September 2026:

The check-fraud wave — mail theft targeting checks has surged, driving harder federal enforcement and new proposals to stiffen penalties for postal crime.
Hardened mailboxes — USPS keeps rolling out higher-security collection boxes and electronic carrier locks after waves of fishing and stolen “arrow keys.”
The federal–state handoff — as more states pass their own porch-piracy statutes, prosecutors keep sorting which thefts go federal and which stay local. Either way, the thief runs out of gaps.

When these move, this page gets updated.

Why this page exists: “it’s a federal crime to steal mail” is one of those lines everyone has heard and almost nobody can back up. This is the backup — the actual statute, what it covers, where it stops, and what to do as the person whose mail vanished. Every claim above links to the primary source below.

The Bottom Line

The mailbox at the curb looks ordinary, but the law around it is anything but: a statute with a five-year ceiling, an agency older than the country, and a definition of “mail” wide enough to cover the package on your porch — as long as USPS put it there. Report the theft, hand over the footage, work your refund through the seller and your card, and let the oldest cops in America handle the person who thought a doormat was a free store. Now you know.

Your practical guidePackage says delivered but never arrived? → The whole subjectExplore Know Your Rights → The libraryBrowse all case & law files →

Sources

Primary sources:

18 U.S.C. § 1708 — Theft or receipt of stolen mail matter (full text) — law.cornell.edu
U.S. Postal Inspection Service — Mail theft: prevention and reporting — uspis.gov
USPIS — Report a crime — uspis.gov
IdentityTheft.gov — recovery plans for identity theft — identitytheft.gov

LawJustic is for educational purposes only and does not provide legal advice. Criminal statutes are applied case by case, and charging decisions belong to prosecutors. If you’re involved in a criminal matter on either side, contact a licensed attorney. Last reviewed: September 2026.