Postal Service lets towns pay to change ZIP Code borders.
S. 3175 — CIPZIP Act of 2025 · Filed by James Lankford (R-OK) · 1 cosponsor · Introduced Nov 18, 2025 · Reported out
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
The bill lets state, local, and tribal governments pay the U.S. Postal Service to change ZIP Code boundaries. Before, the Postal Service could say no because of cost. Now the Postal Service must give a reason if it denies a request. If cost is the only reason, the government has 30 days to offer payment. If they pay, the Postal Service must approve the change. The program runs for seven years. The Postal Regulatory Commission must report each year on requests made, approved, and denied. It also reports how much money is collected.
Who it affects
Citizens in towns and counties may benefit from ZIP Code changes. These changes improve mail delivery or community identity. Wealthy towns can more easily pay for boundary changes. Poor towns may not afford the cost.
One thing to notice
Rich towns can buy ZIP Code changes but poor towns cannot. This shifts cost from the federal Postal Service to local governments.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
1 cosponsor: 1 Republicans.
- Nov 18, 2025 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in Senate”
- Nov 18, 2025 — Referred to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs · Congress.gov: “Read twice and referred to the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs”
- Aug 6, 2026 — Reported out of committee · Congress.gov: “Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. Ordered to be reported with an amendment in the…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Money around this bill
1 groups reported lobbying about this bill. They filed 2 reports from Dec 2025 to Jun 2026.
Those reports show $70,000 in lobbying spending. Each report lists about 6 bills. So that money was not all for this bill.
More groups named this bill than 0% of bills with any report.
James Lankford, who sponsored the bill, received $354,000 from PACs for the 2026 election.
- National Zip Code Advocacy Coalition (informal Coalition) — $70,000 in 2 reports
Lobbying is legal. These reports show who lobbied about this bill, not what changed.
Words to know
- ZIP Code boundaries — The lines that mark which ZIP Code covers which area.
- Postal Regulatory Commission — A government group that watches over how the Postal Service works.
- lobbying — Trying to influence lawmakers about a bill. Companies and groups pay people to do this.
- PACs — Groups that collect money and give it to candidates for office.
- sponsored — To sponsor a bill is to introduce it in Congress and put your name on it.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (3,115 characters) on Aug 20, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,206 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
Money — Senate Lobbying Disclosure Act filings whose specific-issue field names this bill for quarters ending Dec 2025 to Jun 2026. A filing's amount is reported whole beside the median number of bills a filing names; it is never divided across them. PAC receipts are FEC-reported contributions to the sponsor's candidate committee in the 2026 cycle.
As of — lobbying records through Jul 17, 2026 · page rendered 2026-09-17.
“Postal Service lets towns pay to change ZIP Code borders.” QuorumCivic. https://share.quorumcivic.app/bill/119/s3175/simple Report an error