Canada Post is switching to community mailboxes: will your home change, when, and how to get your mail afterwards (Greater Victoria as the example, with a timetable for the ten provinces and three territories)

1. First, look at how your home gets mail now

This change is called "community mailbox conversion": it means changing door-to-door delivery (the letter carrier walks to each home's door to deliver the mail) to community mailboxes (a set of mailboxes installed by the street, with one locked compartment for each home).

Canada Post's materials divide addresses across Canada into three kinds:

• Centralized delivery, about 73%: this includes community mailboxes, post office boxes (PO boxes), and the mailboxes in apartment and condominium (condo) buildings;
• Door-to-door, about 23%;
• Rural mailboxes, about 4%, counted separately.

What is being changed is the door-to-door kind: about 4 million addresses across Canada.

How to tell whether you have door-to-door delivery. It is simple: if the letter carrier puts your mail straight into the slot in your door or the mailbox beside it, you have door-to-door delivery; if you have to walk out to a row of metal mailboxes by the street, or to a row of mailboxes in the lobby downstairs, you do not. If you are not sure, Canada Post says you can contact it and it will help you find out (section 13).

What matters is how this address gets its mail, not what kind of home it is. On the same street, some houses have used a community mailbox for a long time while others still get mail at the door; some apartment buildings have mailboxes in the lobby, while in some small buildings each unit has its own mailbox at the door. So do not just go by sayings like "all houses will change" or "apartments will not change"; look at how your home actually gets its mail.

2. What a community mailbox is and what it looks like

A community mailbox is a set of metal mailbox cabinets made of aluminum, installed in a residential area. It is not one big box that anyone can open, and it does not mean you have to go to the post office every time. Canada Post's official illustrated sheet describes it like this:

• One compartment for each home, each with its own lock. The letter carrier puts your mail into your compartment, and you open it with your own key. The compartments are large enough for large envelopes, small parcels and magazines, and for several days of mail for most households.
• Each mailbox has two large parcel compartments. If a parcel is too big for your compartment, it goes into a parcel compartment, and a key that opens the parcel compartment is left in your compartment (more in section 8).
• One outgoing mail slot. The cabinet has a wide slot where you can drop letters you want to send.
• A sloped top, so rain and melting snow run off instead of running down onto the compartment doors.
• You can get your mail 24 hours a day.

Two numbers tell you which compartment is yours. One is the "module number" of the whole mailbox unit, in the top left corner of the mailbox; the other is the "compartment number" of your own compartment, on its small locked door. Do not look for your compartment by your house number.

How a community mailbox differs from the mailboxes in an apartment building. Both are centralized delivery: the letter carrier delivers to many homes in one place, with one compartment for each home. The difference is where they are and who looks after them:

• For mailboxes in apartment and condominium (strata) buildings, you contact the building manager or property manager about keys and broken mailboxes; Canada Post states that it does not look after these mailboxes;
• A community mailbox is usually outdoors, used by many nearby homes, and maintained by Canada Post: clearing snow, repairing and replacing locks, and removing graffiti (section 12).

Canada Post says community mailboxes have been used in Canada for more than 40 years, by millions of people.

3. Why the change, and how far it has gone across Canada

Why the change. The federal government's statement of September 25, 2025 said: twenty years ago Canada Post delivered 5.5 billion letters a year, and now it delivers only 2 billion, while the number of households keeps growing, which means fewer letters but more doors to go to; Canada Post has lost more than $5 billion in total since 2018. So the government lifted the moratorium on converting to community mailboxes and allowed the remaining roughly 4 million door-to-door addresses to be converted to community mailboxes, which it estimates will save nearly $400 million a year. Canada Post itself gives two reasons: first, security, because almost all letters and parcels go into locked compartments; second, cost, because delivering to the door costs much more than delivering to a community mailbox.

Timeline:

Large city centres come later. The April 16 news release said: most of the places chosen for the first batch are next to areas that already use community mailboxes; dense city centres are harder, and will be done in later years. Greater Victoria's order looks similar: V9A, V9B and V9C are scheduled for November 2027, while for V8W, where Victoria City Hall is, the lookup tool shows 2029 (section 4). This is what we noticed by comparing the tool's results; Canada Post has not said why Greater Victoria is scheduled this way.

Toronto (in passing). In Toronto, this batch is M9V and M9W in Etobicoke; the April news release estimated about 18,000 addresses, and the list says November 2026. The 18,000 is the estimate for this batch, not the number of households in all of Toronto.

4. Greater Victoria: look at the first three characters of the postal code

A postal code has six characters; the first three (for example V9A) are called the forward sortation area (FSA) and stand for one area. Canada Post's list and its lookup tool both go only by the first three characters; the lookup tool's own words are "most addresses" in that area, not every street address.

In the official list (PDF), the Greater Victoria rows are all November 2027:

The list puts "Victoria and View Royal" together in one row; this does not mean that every part of both places is covered by all three postal code areas.

Not being on the list does not mean no change: an area may be scheduled for 2028 or later, or may have no plan yet. The list only covers 2026 and 2027. In the lookup tool, many Greater Victoria postal code areas are scheduled for 2028 or 2029. To give you an idea, we took the municipal hall address given on each municipality's own website as an example and looked it up in the tool:

How to read this table:

• It only uses the municipal hall address as an example, to show you one of the postal code areas used in that municipality. A municipality often has more than one set of first three characters. For example, the addresses on the District of Saanich's own website start with both V8X and V8P, and the PDF list also includes V9A for Saanich. So please be sure to look at your own home's postal code.
• Not all of the City of Victoria is scheduled for November 2027. The list puts V9A, V9B and V9C in the "Victoria and View Royal" row; but the postal code of Victoria City Hall is V8W, and the tool shows 2029 for V8W.
• Highlands and Metchosin do not appear in the list, or among the community names in the June news release. Although their municipal halls' postal codes fall in V9B and V9C, Canada Post has not said that addresses in these two places will change as well; go by the letter Canada Post sends to your home.
• "Not scheduled at this time" does not mean never. This is what the tool shows today; its exact words are "Delivery to … is not scheduled to change", meaning no change is planned at this time. These places may also have little door-to-door delivery to begin with; Canada Post has not given a reason, and we do not guess.

Results in the lookup tool for every postal code area starting with V8 or V9, as of November 5, 2026:

• October 2027: V8J (on the list this is Prince Rupert, not in Greater Victoria)
• November 2027: V9A, V9B, V9C
• 2028: V8N, V8P, V8X, V8Y, V8Z
• 2029: V8A, V8R, V8S, V8T, V8V, V8W, V9W
• 2030: V8C, V8G, V9L, V9M, V9N, V9Y
• 2031: V9R, V9S, V9T
• Not scheduled at this time: V8B, V8E, V8H, V8K, V8L, V8M, V9E, V9G, V9H, V9J, V9K, V9P, V9V, V9X, V9Z

Postal codes starting with V8 and V9 are not only in Greater Victoria, and in the list above we have not marked which city each one belongs to (the official tool does not give city names either); just find the first three characters of your own postal code. Where only a year is shown and no month, Canada Post has not set the month yet; Canada Post says the tool will be updated once schedules are set.

5. Look it up online yourself: enter the first three characters of your postal code

Step 1: open Canada Post's community mailboxes page. The link is at the end of this section; you can also type canadapost.ca/cmb straight into your browser, and it will take you to the same page. At the top of the page there is a box called "Community mailbox conversion lookup tool".

Step 2: enter the first three characters of your postal code and click "Search". Only the first three characters, "letter, number, letter", for example V9A. You do not need to give your name or your street address, and you do not need to sign in.

Step 3: see which kind of result you get. You will see one of these three messages:

When the result has a schedule, two more sentences appear below it: "Timelines are subject to change." and "We will keep customers informed and provide advance notice by mail before making any changes to their delivery."

What this tool can and cannot tell you.

• It can tell you: roughly which year, and which month, your area's turn comes.
• It cannot tell you: whether your particular street address will definitely change; where the new mailbox will be; which module and which compartment you will get; or which day you will get your keys. For these, go by the letters Canada Post sends to your home. Canada Post says it notifies residents a year before an area's turn comes.
• The October 22 news release said this tool is for residents who have door-to-door delivery. If you live in an apartment and get your mail in the lobby, a result of "November 2027" does not mean your building will change.
• Write down the date when you look it up. The tool will be updated, and if you check again later the result may be different.

What to do if the tool and your letter say different things. Go by the letter sent to your home; if you are still not sure, call Canada Post or ask through online chat, and give your full address (section 13).

6. From the first letter to using your new mailbox: which letters you will receive

Canada Post says converting an address from door-to-door delivery to a community mailbox usually takes several months; the timing differs from place to place and may change. When the lookup tool shows a schedule, the "See details" link under the result leads to an official explanation (October 2026 version), which sets out nine steps:

Preparation stage

1. Advance notice. A year before an area's turn, Canada Post notifies residents and local officials.
2. Choosing sites. Canada Post sends staff out on the streets to look for safe, easy-to-reach locations.
3. Writing to residents next to the mailbox. Residents next to a planned mailbox site get a letter that explains the location and what will happen next.
4. Confirming the site. Canada Post looks at the results of the site assessment and the feedback it has received, then confirms the location.

Installation stage

5. Telling you where your mailbox is. A letter confirms the location of your new mailbox, and also introduces the free accommodations (section 9). From this step on, you can apply for an accommodation.
6. Installing the mailbox. Qualified contractors prepare the site and install the mailbox.
7. Sending the keys and telling you the start date. Canada Post sends you the keys to your new mailbox (the original says "sends customers the keys" and does not say whether by mail or in some other way; follow what your letter says), and confirms the day delivery to the new mailbox starts.

Ready stage

8. Final reminder. One more reminder letter is sent before the start.
9. Start using the community mailbox. From the day given in the letter, your mail goes to the new mailbox.

An information package that Canada Post prepared in April 2026 for the Town of Riverview, New Brunswick (posted on the Town of Riverview's website) gives a little more detail: in step 2, the chosen sites are shown to the municipality's planning staff for comments; in step 3, if nearby residents have questions or concerns, someone from Canada Post's Delivery Services will follow up; in step 8, the reminder letter asks anyone who has not received their keys to contact Canada Post.

The June 11 news release says the same thing: residents will be told once a site is confirmed, and will get notice and keys before the change. The City of Colwood's website in B.C. says that the notices already mailed to homes in Colwood tell residents they will be informed of the new mailbox's location and the conversion date, and will get their keys well before the change.

What the envelope looks like. The Riverview package includes a sample of the first letter: the envelope is in English and French and says "Important information about changes to your mail delivery". The package says these letters are all written in both official languages and come in clearly marked envelopes. Do not throw it away as junk mail. The package does not say whether the envelopes in Greater Victoria will look exactly the same; go by what you receive.

Each time you get a letter, you can do these things:

• Check that it is addressed to your address;
• Write down the dates, the mailbox location, the module number and the compartment number given in the letter;
• If someone in your home has trouble walking, bending or opening locks, you can apply for an accommodation once you get the "location letter" (section 9);
• When you get the keys, first go and try them on the new mailbox; if the start date is close and you still have not received keys, call (section 13). (Trying the keys is our suggestion.)

7. Where the mailbox goes, and whom to contact if you have concerns about the location

Who decides. The City of Colwood's website puts it plainly: Canada Post decides where community mailboxes go, and the final say belongs to Canada Post ("Canada Post … has the authority to make the final decision about where mailboxes are placed"). Canada Post's package for the Town of Riverview says that chosen sites are shown to the municipality's planning staff for comments; but the final decision is made by Canada Post, not by the municipality.

What Canada Post says it looks at when choosing a site. The package for the Town of Riverview says:

• It balances safety, convenience for residents and delivery needs;
• It looks at traffic, keeping the required distance from intersections and from driveways;
• It looks at how people walk there and how easy the site is to reach, and prefers places with sidewalks and near existing street lights;
• To meet accessibility and safety requirements, some sites may need changes, such as cutting a slope into the curb (a curb cut).

What happens during installation. First, underground lines are checked; then the foundation is laid; a few weeks after the foundation is done, the mailbox cabinet is installed; each step usually takes less than a day.

If you have concerns, contact people in this order:

1. Your home is right next to the planned mailbox site: you will get a letter (section 6, step 3). If you have concerns, raise them as early as you can in the way the letter says: Canada Post says it looks at the feedback it receives before confirming a site; the Riverview package also says that if nearby residents have questions or concerns, someone from Delivery Services will follow up.
2. You are not right next to it, but you think the location is unsafe or inconvenient: call Canada Post customer service, or explain the situation through online chat (section 13). Ask them to open a service ticket, and write down the ticket number.
3. You cannot get to that location because of a physical limitation: this is more than a "concern"; you can apply for an accommodation, such as having your mail moved to a more convenient mailbox (section 9).
4. Canada Post has finished dealing with it, and you are still not satisfied: you can complain to the Canada Post Ombudsman. The Ombudsman's office says it is independent of Canada Post and is the final level for complaints about postal service; but you must first have a service ticket that Canada Post has finished handling and closed, and you must include the ticket number and related documents with your complaint. After you submit it, the office says it will contact you within 5 to 10 business days.

Here is what you can say (there are more in section 13):

(Put your street name in the brackets. Use this if your home is next to the planned site and you are worried about safety there.)

8. How to get letters and parcels after the change

Everyday mail. Open your own compartment with your key, take your mail, and lock it again. Letters, magazines and small parcels that fit are all in your compartment. Canada Post says more than eight out of ten of the parcels it delivers fit in your compartment or in a parcel compartment.

When your parcel is in a parcel compartment, three steps:

1. Open your own compartment. Inside there will be either the parcel itself or a key with a numbered tag.
2. Look at the number on the key tag, find the large parcel compartment with the matching number, open it with this key, and take your parcel.
3. Lock the parcel compartment, and drop this key into the mailbox's outgoing mail slot. This key is not yours to keep; do not take it home, because other people need to use it after you.

Parcels that are too big, or that need a signature. Canada Post says:

• Parcels that do not fit in a parcel compartment, or that need a signature, are delivered to your door;
• If no one is home and there is no safe place to leave it, or if a signature is required, the parcel goes to a nearby post office, and you are left a delivery notice card that says when and where you can pick it up. Go and pick it up as the card says.

So "switching to community mailboxes" does not mean "parcels will never be delivered to the door again".

If you do not want parcels left at the street, you can have them sent to a post office. Canada Post has a free service called FlexDelivery: sign up online for free, verify your identity with the name and address on your government-issued photo ID, and choose a post office; when you shop online, use your FlexDelivery address as the shipping address, and the parcel will go to that post office. Bring your government-issued photo ID when you pick it up. Note: the seller must be able to ship to a post office box (PO box) address.

When delivery happens. Canada Post gives residential delivery hours as Monday to Friday, from 9 a.m. to as late as 8 p.m., with no delivery on statutory holidays (for example Christmas Day and New Year's Day). On weekend parcel delivery, that page only mentions some parts of Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal; it does not mention B.C.

This guide covers Canada Post only. For how courier companies such as UPS, FedEx and Purolator deliver, see their own rules.

Make it a habit: pick up your mail every few days; if a parcel compartment has your parcel in it, take it out soon so it does not tie up the large compartment. (Our suggestion)

Related: if a parcel shows as "delivered" but you did not get it, for where to look first and how to ask Canada Post to trace it, see Guide No. 45, Online shopping problems and returns, section 5 "Marked 'delivered', but you did not get it".

9. Trouble walking or opening locks: free accommodations

Canada Post has a free Delivery Accommodation Program for residential customers with physical limitations who have difficulty getting their mail and parcels. Customers in cities, suburbs and rural areas can all apply. Canada Post says more than 17,000 households across Canada already use some kind of accommodation.

What counts is that you really have difficulty getting your mail; reaching a certain age does not automatically keep door-to-door delivery for you. Each person applies based on their own situation.

What kinds there are:

Home delivery has conditions. Customers approved for home delivery must provide their own secure mail receptacle, and must make sure the letter carrier can get to it safely. Canada Post says accommodations can be seasonal, temporary or permanent.

Do you need to provide proof? You must provide supporting documentation to apply for home delivery. The web page says proof is needed for home delivery; the PDF explanation of the accommodation program says proof is needed for both home delivery and a reassigned mailbox location. The website does not say what kind of proof; ask when you apply.

When you can apply. Canada Post's nine-step explanation and the June 11 news release both say you can apply once you receive the letter telling you where your new mailbox is.

How to apply, three ways:

• Online: on the accommodation page, open a service ticket ("Create a service ticket"), tick the accommodation you want, and click "Start your request". To apply online for home delivery or a reassigned mailbox location, you have to verify your address and identity.
• By mail: on the page, ask for a paper form to be mailed to you, with a prepaid return envelope.
• By phone: 1-844-454-3009; TTY (text telephone) for people who are deaf or hard of hearing: 1-800-267-2797. The phone hours are the same as for customer service; for the hours in B.C. time, see section 13.

A small warning: on the accommodation web page, the phone number is written as 1-844-454-3009, but if you tap it directly on a phone, the link dials a different number (1-866-913-2473, which the same page gives as the number of Canada Post's privacy office). To call the accommodation line, please type in 1-844-454-3009 yourself. (We found this on November 5, 2026 by looking at the web page's source code; it may be fixed later.)

On the phone, you can say:

(Use this when you are calling for a family member; change the details to fit your situation.)

(Use this if what you need is help turning the key.)

Privacy. Canada Post says your personal information is used only to decide on and manage your accommodation.

10. Apartments, townhouses, detached houses and basement suites: what each one means for you

You live in an apartment or a condominium (condo / strata) and pick up your mail in the lobby or elsewhere in the building.

• This is already centralized delivery. In the information package Canada Post prepared for the Town of Riverview, "door-to-door delivery", "community mailboxes" and "apartment lobby mailboxes" are counted separately, and the addresses being converted come from the door-to-door group.
• If your city is on the list and your postal code shows "November 2027", that does not mean your building will have to switch to picking up mail at the street.
• If a key, lock or mailbox in your building is broken, contact the building manager or superintendent; Canada Post states that it does not look after these mailboxes. If you are not sure who looks after your mailbox, you can ask through the online chat on Canada Post's website.
• For peace of mind, you can also ask your property manager: "Will our building's mail delivery change?" (This asks whether mail delivery to your building will change.) (Our suggestion)

You live in a detached house and your mail comes to your door. This is the kind of address being converted this time. Look up your postal code as described in section 5, and watch for the letters and note what they say as described in section 6.

You live in a townhouse or a unit in a small building. Check whether your mail now comes to your own door or to a row of shared mailboxes. If it comes to your door, read this guide the same way as for a detached house; if you already get it from a row of shared mailboxes, read it the same way as for an apartment.

You live in a basement suite, a backyard cottage or a similar unit that shares a street number with your landlord. Canada Post says that if a suite number has been added to the original address and you want mail delivered straight to that suite, the address must first be registered with your municipality. How your compartment will be assigned when the area switches to community mailboxes is not stated on the website; go by the letter you receive, and call if you have questions.

You rent. The notice letters are sent to the address, and your landlord may not pass the news on to you. When a letter from Canada Post arrives, open it and read it yourself; if you need an accommodation, apply for it yourself as described in section 9. (Our suggestion)

A newly built home, or a home you have just moved into that already uses a community mailbox. See "You just moved in and have no keys" in section 11.

11. Keys: no keys after moving in, lost keys, broken keys

One thing first: for mail security, Canada Post does not keep copies of your community mailbox keys. If your keys are gone, it cannot "just give you another one"; the only way is to change the lock and make new keys.

You just moved in and have no keys.

1. First ask your landlord, your real estate agent or the previous owner for the keys.
2. If they cannot give them to you, fill out the form on Canada Post's website to request new keys. Canada Post says that if you have just moved in and have no keys, it will change the lock and give you a new set of keys free of charge.
3. When the keys are ready, you will get a notice card. Take the notice card and government-issued photo ID to the post office named on the card to pick them up.
4. The key envelope will show where your mailbox is and what your compartment number is.

Note: once you submit the request, it cannot be cancelled. Also, Canada Post does not provide community mailbox locations (to protect privacy and mail security). If you have just moved in and do not know where your mailbox is, contact Canada Post and it will tell you how to get this information; if you request new keys, the key envelope will show the mailbox location and your compartment number.

Your keys are lost, stolen or misplaced.

• You still have a spare key: take it to a hardware store or a locksmith and have a copy made.
• Both keys are gone: open a service ticket on the website to request new keys. The fee is $29 plus tax, paid at the post office when you pick up the keys. When you pick them up, bring the notice card and government-issued photo ID as well.

Your key or lock is broken or will not open.

• First try your spare key.
• If it still will not open, open a service ticket and describe clearly what is wrong with the lock or key. Canada Post says that if your key does not work properly, it will change the lock and key free of charge.

Mailboxes inside buildings are not looked after by Canada Post. For mailbox keys in apartments, condos, strata buildings and shops, contact the building manager or property manager.

If you have just moved, do not forget mail forwarding and changing your address. Canada Post's mail forwarding service (Mail Forwarding) is a paid service. It only catches mail sent to your old address; you still have to change your address with each organization yourself, one by one.

Related: for how to buy mail forwarding around a move, how much it costs and which mail is not forwarded, see Guide No. 48, Changing your address after a move, section 4 "Two weeks before the move: buy mail forwarding".

12. Frozen locks and snow in winter, damaged mailboxes and litter

Looking after community mailboxes is Canada Post's job: clearing snow, cleaning off graffiti, and repairing and changing locks. If you run into any of the problems below, go to "Getting help with your community mailbox" at the bottom of Canada Post's community mailboxes page, choose the reason, and open a service ticket:

The mailbox is damaged, a compartment is open, or there is litter around it. Canada Post asks you to report it by phone (section 13).

You cannot get to the mailbox because of limited mobility. Contact customer service, or apply directly for an accommodation (section 9).

13. Contacting Canada Post: phone, online tickets, what to say, and who to go to if you are not satisfied

Phone (for personal customers; the questions covered include community mailboxes):

When you can call. The website gives the hours in Eastern Time (ET): Monday to Friday 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Most of B.C. (including Greater Victoria) uses Pacific Time (UTC−7) all year from 2026 and no longer changes its clocks; the East (Ontario) still changes its clocks twice a year, so the time difference depends on the season. The table below is for Greater Victoria; in southeastern B.C., places such as Cranbrook, Fernie, Golden and Invermere use UTC−6 all year, so their times are one hour later than in the table below.

According to the National Research Council Canada (NRC), the East moves its clocks forward on the second Sunday of March and back on the first Sunday of November each year (March 14 and November 7, 2027 are both Sundays; after the clocks go back on November 7, the difference is 2 hours again). The NRC page itself notes that the page is under review, that from November 1, 2026 some of its content is no longer accurate (it does not say which), and that provincial and territorial government websites are the most accurate source.

Online chat. "Let's chat" on Canada Post's website is a virtual assistant that you can use at any time; during business hours, it passes you to a real person when needed.

Online service tickets (support ticket). For lost keys, broken locks, frozen locks and snow clearance, open a ticket directly at the bottom of the community mailboxes page (section 12). If you sign in to your Canada Post account before you open the ticket, you can follow its progress online. Once you have opened a ticket, write down the ticket number.

You can say it like this:

(This says you got a letter about the change and asks when your address will change.)

(This asks Canada Post to check who looks after your mailbox.)

(This says your start date is [date] and you still have no keys.)

(This says both keys are lost and you want to request new ones.)

(This reports a damaged community mailbox on that street.)

(This reports an open compartment in the community mailbox on that street.)

Before you call, have these ready: your full address (including the postal code), the letters you received (with the dates, module number and compartment number on them), and the numbers of any tickets you opened before.

Who to go to if you are not satisfied. First go to Canada Post customer service and have it finish dealing with your ticket and close it. If you are still not satisfied, take the number of that closed ticket to the Canada Post Ombudsman and file a complaint there. The online form is the fastest way; you can also send a paper form by fax or by mail (section 7).

14. Timetable for the ten provinces and three territories

First, be clear about what this table is.

• Table 1 below is the full text of the PDF list of 2026 and 2027 conversions on Canada Post's website (8 provinces, 51 rows). Place names are copied exactly as they appear in the PDF, so you can compare them with your letter; only the first three characters of each postal code are listed. The PDF was last modified on September 16, 2026.
• Each row means "the door-to-door delivery addresses in this place, within these postal codes"; it does not mean that the whole city, the whole postal code area or the whole province is changing.
• All the months are "expected"; Canada Post states that they may change.
• A postal code that is not on the list may still change: the tool may already show a month in 2026 or 2027 for it (Table 2), or it may be scheduled for 2028 or later, or not be scheduled yet (Table 3). Please enter your own postal code and check.

Table 1: the 2026 and 2027 list (the PDF table as published)

Points to note in this table:

• The two "started" rows. The October 22 news release says the first addresses in Sept-Îles and Winnipeg started using community mailboxes that week. This only shows that the change "has started"; it does not show that every address in those rows has been converted.
• The four postal codes listed under both Mississauga and Brampton. The PDF lists L4T, L4V, L5S and L5T in both the Brampton row (November 2027) and the Mississauga row (October 2027). The lookup tool shows November 2027 for all four. If you live in one of these four postal codes, give Canada Post your full address and ask, and go by the letter you receive.
• The North Vancouver row. The PDF says only "North Vancouver"; for the same group of postal codes, the April 16 news release names three places: the City of North Vancouver, the District of North Vancouver and West Vancouver.
• The names of the First Nations reserves. The June 11 news release states that New Songhees 1A belongs to the Songhees Nation, and that Tsinstikeptum 9 and 10 belong to Westbank First Nation.
• The same city can be converted in two rounds. Brampton has an October round and a November round, Ottawa has a July round and an August round, and Winnipeg has an October 2026 round and a September 2027 round. Do not assume a city has only one date.

Table 2: postal codes that have a specific month in the lookup tool but are not listed in the PDF

The lookup tool's data (updated October 19) is newer than the PDF (September 16). We checked every postal code in the PDF against the tool, and apart from the four Mississauga codes above, all of them match. In addition, the tool already has these 12 postal codes set to a month, and the PDF does not list them:

Which province the first letter of a postal code stands for (Canada Post's addressing guidelines): A, Newfoundland and Labrador; B, Nova Scotia; C, Prince Edward Island; E, New Brunswick; G, H and J, Quebec; K, L, M, N and P, Ontario; R, Manitoba; S, Saskatchewan; T, Alberta; V, British Columbia; X, Northwest Territories and Nunavut; Y, Yukon. So the codes above that start with B are in Nova Scotia, and the ones that start with L are in Ontario.

Table 3: which year each province's and territory's postal codes are scheduled for in the lookup tool (these are counts of postal code areas, not households)

We made this table on November 5, 2026 by counting the official data behind the lookup tool, one entry at a time: the data lists 1,650 postal codes in all, and 918 of them have a year. The table can tell you roughly which year a postal code is scheduled for, if it still has door-to-door addresses; the latest year anywhere in the country is 2031. It cannot tell you whether a particular household will change. One postal code area may have thousands of households, or only a few, so do not use the number of postal codes to compare numbers of households.

The two provinces and three territories not on the list. Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Yukon, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut are not in the 2026 and 2027 PDF. According to the lookup tool:

• Newfoundland and Labrador: the earliest is 2028 (2 postal codes); A1A, for example, is 2029.
• Prince Edward Island: the earliest is 2029 (1 postal code); C1A, for example, is 2031.
• Yukon: only Y1A is scheduled, for 2030; Y0A and Y0B are not scheduled at this time.
• Northwest Territories and Nunavut: the tool's data lists only X0E and X1A, and neither is scheduled; for codes such as X0A that are not in the data, the tool also shows that delivery is not scheduled to change.

All of these go only as far as the year, with no months. "Not scheduled at this time" is not a promise that delivery will never change. Please enter your own postal code and check again.

15. Checklist before you act

• First check whether your mail now comes to your door, or whether you pick it up in an apartment lobby or at a mailbox on the street. If you pick it up in a lobby or on the street, this change usually does not apply to you.
• If it comes to your door: go to Canada Post's community mailboxes page, enter the first three characters of your postal code, and write down the result and the date you checked.
• Watch for letters from Canada Post: they are in English and French, with "Important information about changes to your mail delivery" on the envelope. Do not throw them out as advertising.
• When you get the location letter: write down where the mailbox is; if someone in your home has difficulty getting the mail, this is the time to apply for a free accommodation (1-844-454-3009; dial the number from the web page by hand).
• When you get the letter with your keys and start date: write down the module number and compartment number.
• If the start date is close and you still have no keys: call 1-866-607-6301.
• If you live next to a proposed mailbox site and have concerns about the location: reply in the way the letter describes, or call customer service to open a ticket, and write down the ticket number.
• After you collect a parcel, drop the parcel compartment key into the outgoing mail slot.
• If you lose your keys: if you have a spare, get a copy made at a hardware store; if both are lost, open a ticket ($29 plus tax).
• For mailboxes inside an apartment building, contact the property manager, not Canada Post.
• If you have just moved: mail forwarding and changing your address are done separately; see Guide No. 48, Changing your address after a move.

Related guides

• → No. 45 · Online shopping problems and returns
  If a package is marked "delivered" but you did not get it: where to look first (if you use a community mailbox, your own mailbox and the parcel compartment) and how to ask Canada Post to trace it (section 5); and B.C.'s right to cancel and refunds when an online order does not arrive, is wrong or broken, or you want to return it.
• → No. 48 · Changing your address after a move
  Buying mail forwarding two weeks before a move: the two types, what they cost, when they start and which mail and parcels are not forwarded (section 4); how to change your address in each place, such as your licence, MSP and the CRA; and a checklist at the end.
• → No. 63 · Canadian time zones at a glance
  How to convert Eastern Time to B.C. time when calling federal government lines (section 9); and, now that B.C. no longer changes its clocks, how many hours Victoria is from other provinces, Beijing and some large U.S. cities.
• → No. 61 · Canada Post Swap Spot
  Canada Post's Swap Spot, for handing over used items at a post office: how to use it, what it costs and where it is available; common scams when buying and selling used items online, how to make in-person exchanges safer, and who to contact if something goes wrong.

Main official links in this guide

These are all the official web pages used in this guide, sorted into 5 groups by organization; the end of each section also lists the ones for that section. Canada Post's web pages and PDFs, the data file behind the lookup tool, the federal government's statement, the time zone pages of the B.C. government and the National Research Council, the City of Colwood's "Mail Delivery" page, Canada Post's information package for the Town of Riverview, and the municipal hall addresses on the websites of 13 Greater Victoria municipalities were all opened and read on November 5, 2026; for Canada Post's "Find a post office" page and its main accessibility page, we only confirmed that the pages open. A few points to note: the three English results of the lookup tool were read word for word in the program file behind the tool on Canada Post's website, not by actually running a search in a browser; the customer service phone numbers are generated by a program on the web page, and were read from a program file on the same Canada Post website, not by opening the page in a browser; among the Greater Victoria municipal websites, a site search found a page about community mailboxes only on Colwood's, and we did not go through the other municipalities' sites page by page; we did not find out whether the extra details in the Riverview package, beyond Canada Post's national nine-step explanation, are the same for B.C. municipalities; and we did not check the Ontario government's website separately for the dates the clocks change in the East.

Canada Post: the transformation and the lookup tool

Canada Post: delivery accommodations

Canada Post: keys, mailbox problems and customer service

Government of Canada, Government of British Columbia, National Research Council Canada

Municipal governments