Glossary
Shipping Zone
Also calledshipping zonespostal zoneUSPS zonecarrier zone
Definition
A shipping zone is the distance band a carrier assigns between where a package ships from and where it's going. Together with weight, it sets the price on zone-priced services. USPS numbers its zones 1 through 9, measured between the 3-digit ZIP Code areas at each end.
How a shipping zone is set
A zone isn't a fixed place on a map. It depends on both ends of the trip, so the same customer address can sit in a different zone depending on where the package leaves from. On the current USPS chart, Austin, TX to New York City is Zone 7; a warehouse in the Northeast would put that same address in a much lower zone.
USPS doesn't measure door to door. Under its Domestic Mail Manual, distance runs from the center of the 3-digit ZIP Code area serving the origin post office to the center of the area serving the destination. Zone 1 is the same 3-digit area, or areas whose centers are up to 50 miles apart. Zones 2 through 7 are bands out to about 150, 300, 600, 1,000, 1,400 and 1,800 miles, and Zone 8 is everything farther. You never measure this yourself: USPS publishes a zone chart for each origin, where the first three digits of the destination ZIP give the zone, with a handful of 5-digit exceptions.
On a zoned service, the zone and the package's billable weight together pick the rate. For a bulky, light box, that billable weight can be its dimensional weight rather than what it weighs on the scale.
What people get wrong about zones
- Zone 9 isn't U.S. territories or military mail. USPS reserves it for the Freely Associated States: Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands. Puerto Rico and Guam are priced in the ordinary zones; from Austin, Puerto Rico is Zone 8.
- The mile bands are USPS's own definitions. They don't describe how UPS or FedEx number their zones, so don't reuse a USPS zone number on another carrier's rate card.
- Not every service is zoned. Priority Mail Flat Rate packaging ships to any state at the same price; the rest of Priority Mail is priced by weight and zone.
- A Shopify shipping zone is something else. In Shopify's settings, a shipping zone is a group of countries or regions you set checkout rates for, not a carrier distance band.
Look up a zone
Our USPS zone map finds the zone between any two ZIP codes and colors each 3-digit ZIP area in the contiguous U.S. by its zone from your origin. On the chart effective October 1, 2026, 777 of the 931 destination ZIP areas (83%) are Zones 5 to 7 from Austin and 19 (2%) are Zone 8. Those are counts of ZIP areas, not orders. For each USPS zone band and how Zone 9 works, see what are the USPS shipping zones.
Common Questions About Shipping Zones
- How do I find the shipping zone between two ZIP codes?
- Use the USPS Domestic Zone Chart or a zone lookup tool. Pick the chart for your origin's first three ZIP digits, then find the first three digits of the destination ZIP. A few destinations have 5-digit exceptions, so a ZIP-pair lookup is the safest check.
- Does the zone change if my orders ship from a different warehouse?
- It can. A zone is measured from the 3-digit ZIP area the package ships from, so a new warehouse location can put a destination in a different zone. Some destinations keep the same zone number when the new distance still falls in the same band, but a customer who is a far zone from one location can be a near zone from another.
- Is a Shopify shipping zone the same thing as a carrier zone?
- No. In Shopify, a shipping zone is a group of countries or regions you set checkout rates for. Carrier zones are the distance bands that set what the carrier charges for the label.
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