DHL rents USPS trucks for $10 billion and skips buying the fleet

Nineteen hubs, zero doorstep trucks

Scott Ashbaugh's American parcel network runs 19 automated hubs, its own pickup, sortation and air-and-ground linehaul. Not one vehicle in it touches a doorstep. The final mile belongs to USPS↗: more than 41,550 ZIP codes, more than 170 million delivery points, six days a week ¹.

A $10 billion second entrance

On 28 May 2026, DHL eCommerce and the Postal Service signed an exclusive multi-year last-mile contract↗ expected to be worth well over $10 billion, a first in a 25-year relationship that ran year to year ¹². The trade press re-ran it as news this week↗ ³. The reversal is the story: on 10 November 2008, DHL announced 9,500 US job cuts and the end of US-only domestic shipping by land and air, blaming heavy losses in a unit that competed with UPS and FedEx ⁴. The company that could not afford American trucks is back on borrowed ones.

USPS competes with its own tenants

The Postal Service sells Ground Advantage, its own economy parcel product↗: 2-5 days, up to 70 lbs ⁵. DHL's 2-5 day Expedited and 2-3 day Expedited Max sit in the gap between that and Priority Mail ², and a unit raised on 4-8 ounce parcels is now chasing 2-10 lb freight and bigger brands ². Last December, USPS moved to open its last-mile network beyond Amazon and UPS, a bidding process covering its 18,000 delivery destination units ⁶². Reaching 170 million addresses six days a week makes USPS "the best last-mile provider by default," in Steiner's words ⁶.

Everyone rents the same rails

DHL, Amazon and UPS are USPS's three largest last-mile customers, worth more than $8 billion a year together ². UPS tendered 977,000 Ground Saver parcels a day in the first quarter of 2026 and expects 1.5 million daily by the second ². USPS itself lost $9 billion in fiscal 2025 and $2 billion in the second quarter of fiscal 2026; a retirement-payment waiver pushed its cash cliff to 2031-2034↗ ⁷.

FedEx pays full freight

FedEx is the odd one out. USPS replaced FedEx as its domestic air-cargo provider in 2024, awarding UPS a 5.5-year deal worth an estimated $1.5 billion a year, now listed above $10 billion by the agency's watchdog↗ ⁸. The big last-mile tenants are Amazon, UPS and now DHL ²; FedEx's revenue share merely held flat from 2024 to 2025 ⁹, while a rival with no doorstep fleet started pricing 2-10 lb parcels for bigger brands ². The parcel price war now runs on rented rails.

The market was already leaking

US parcel volume hit 23.1 billion in 2025↗, with Amazon Logistics the largest carrier by volume at 6.9 billion parcels ⁹. UPS's revenue share fell from 34% to 31.6%, and Others, the regional carriers and last-mile startups, more than doubled from 3.4% to 7.2% on volume up 127%, driven by Shein and Temu ⁹. Pitney Bowes↗ projects 31 billion parcels by 2031 ⁹.

What breaks it

The contract's length and rates stay undisclosed ²⁶. Ashbaugh says DHL weighed building a ground network, buying a last-mile carrier or partnering elsewhere, and chose rent ². That ties its US business to an agency whose head says it is "basically borrowing money from our retirement plans to fund current operations" ⁷. Steiner warned in March that USPS could run out of cash within a year absent relief, and he wants the borrowing cap, stuck at $15 billion since 1992, lifted to $34.5 billion ⁶².

What to watch next

Three numbers decide whether the rent was cheap: UPS's Ground Saver ramp toward 1.5 million parcels a day ², USPS's full-year results↗, which landed on 14 November last year ¹⁰, and Congress on the cap ⁶. DHL has already paid once to own American trucks and lose money on them. Now it pays the one fleet that already stops at every door.