In 2025, 55,395 complaints were received about the postal service and its competitors. From these numbers the Federal Network Agency shows that a new high has been reached. In the Compared to the previous year, there are a quarter more complaints. At that time there were 44,406.
The complaints mainly concern letters and packages that arrive damaged or have ended up with the wrong addressee. Consumers have also complained about waiting times for their shipments that are too long. A small portion of the requests to speak also concern the opening times of branches and mailboxes. Around 90 percent of the complaints are directed at the logistics company DHLwhich is used domestically as German postal service appears and is the market leader. DPD is one of the competitors.
A total of 9.4 billion letters and 4.5 billion parcels were sent in Germany in 2025. Compared to this number, the proportion of complaints is relatively small. Deutsche Post also points this out. “The postal service in Germany works very well,” they said in response to the increase in complaints. For every million shipments transported, there would be around four complaints. Accordingly, there is “no structural quality problem”. Nevertheless, we are aware that not everything always works out 100 percent. Every complaint is taken seriously.
DHL justifies complaints with mistakes made by competitors
In addition, some of the complaints were caused by other companies, as DHL further announced. A company spokesman reported 800,000 so-called lost and found letters. These are letters that were posted to the wrong addressee and then thrown into a postal mailbox for further delivery to their correct destination. However, these letters were delivered incorrectly by a competitor’s deliverers, so that the recipients mistakenly assumed that the post office had made the mistake, said the post office spokesman. He suspects that this led to a number of complaints.
Despite these statements from Deutsche Post, the level of complaints is significantly higher than it was a few years ago. 2021 were at the Federal Network Agency around 15,000 complaints were received. A year later the value was already 43,000. At the time, the Post justified this figure with “local problems” and linked it to high Covid sickness rates and a tight labor market. The postal service announced at the time that it would take appropriate measures, but the number of complaints did not decrease significantly in the years that followed.
Post changes complaint methodology
The first figures for 2026 also indicate a high level of complaints. In the first quarter, 20,316 critical comments about postal services were received. If things continue like this, the previous year’s figure will be significantly exceeded this year. However, the monthly number of complaints has recently fallen – while there were 8,742 in January, there were only 4,768 in March.
In addition, it will probably be difficult to compare the number of complaints from 2026 with the numbers from 2025, since the post office has changed the complaint methodology: Last year, complaints were still submitted in writing. A complaint tool has now been set up with possible answers. The Postal Service’s concern is that the new multiple-choice system will increase the use of complaints. Which in turn causes the proportion of irrelevant requests to speak to increase and the statistics are inflated to a certain extent.
Law could influence longer waiting times
The economic policy spokesman for the SPD parliamentary group is concerned about the development of the number of complaints. “It is an indication that mail quality is no longer as important to the postal service as it used to be and that the postal service has to focus more on universal service again, i.e. the supply of letters and parcels,” said Roloff. He advocates that the Federal Network Agency, as a supervisory authority, must intervene more and carry out more frequent checks for local deficits. The post office has legal obligations that it must comply with.
Since the beginning of 2025, the post office has had a new one Law gives more time when transporting letters. While she previously had to have delivered 80 percent of the items posted today on the next working day, she now has to deliver 95 percent of the items on the third working day after they were posted. It may be that consumers are annoyed about a longer waiting time than before, even though the delivery is only due to this legal relaxation. 99 percent must be delivered on the fourth working day after posting.