We run one warehouse, in Austin, Texas, and we say that shipping from the middle of the country helps. This page is the evidence behind that claim, including the parts that do not flatter it. Every zone below comes straight from the official USPS Domestic Zone Chart effective September 1, 2026, and you can check any of them yourself in about a minute.
What USPS shipping zones are
USPS prices its zoned services, including Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage, by weight and by zone. The zone is a number from 1 to 9 that stands for distance. Under section 608 of the USPS Domestic Mail Manual, that distance is measured from the centroid of the 3-digit ZIP Code area serving the origin Post Office to the centroid of the 3-digit ZIP Code area serving the destination. It is not road mileage and it is not the state line.
| Zone | Distance from origin (per the DMM) |
|---|---|
| Zone 1 | Same 3-digit ZIP Code area, or up to about 50 miles |
| Zone 2 | Within about 150 miles |
| Zone 3 | Within about 300 miles |
| Zone 4 | Within about 600 miles |
| Zone 5 | Within about 1,000 miles |
| Zone 6 | Within about 1,400 miles |
| Zone 7 | Within about 1,800 miles |
| Zone 8 | Beyond Zone 7 |
| Zone 9 | A short list of destinations named in the DMM, such as Palau, Micronesia and the Marshall Islands |
Zone matters for two reasons. On price, a zoned service costs more at the same weight as the zone climbs, so an identical parcel can cost very different amounts depending only on where it shipped from. On time, a higher zone means the parcel travels further through the network, which generally means more days in transit, although USPS sets delivery expectations separately through its service standards and a zone number is not a delivery promise.
A zone always describes a pair. There is no such thing as “the zone Austin is in”, only the zone from Austin to somewhere. That is why the origin of your inventory is a cost decision: it fixes the zone of every order you ship.
USPS zones from Austin, Los Angeles and Newark
The table below shows the zone from each of three origins to 24 major US metros. The origins are Austin (3-digit ZIP 787), Los Angeles (900) as a West Coast warehouse, and Newark (070) as an East Coast one. The lowest zone in each row is in bold. Zones are shown exactly as USPS publishes them, markers included.
| Metro (destination ZIP) | Austin (787) | Los Angeles (900) | Newark (070) |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY (100) | 7 | 8 | 1* |
| Los Angeles, CA (900) | 6 | 1* | 8 |
| Chicago, IL (606) | 5 | 7 | 5 |
| Houston, TX (770) | 2 | 6 | 7 |
| Phoenix, AZ (850) | 5 | 4 | 8 |
| Philadelphia, PA (191) | 7 | 8 | 2 |
| Dallas, TX (752) | 3* | 6 | 6 |
| San Diego, CA (921) | 6 | 2* | 8 |
| San Francisco, CA (941) | 7 | 4 | 8 |
| Seattle, WA (981) | 7 | 5 | 8 |
| Denver, CO (802) | 5 | 5 | 7 |
| Atlanta, GA (303) | 5 | 8 | 5 |
| Miami, FL (331) | 6 | 8 | 6 |
| Boston, MA (021) | 7 | 8 | 3 |
| Minneapolis, MN (554) | 6 | 7 | 6 |
| Nashville, TN (372) | 5 | 7 | 5 |
| Portland, OR (972) | 7 | 5 | 8 |
| Las Vegas, NV (891) | 6 | 3* | 8 |
| Detroit, MI (482) | 6 | 8 | 4 |
| Charlotte, NC (282) | 6 | 8 | 4 |
| Salt Lake City, UT (841) | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| Kansas City, MO (641) | 5 | 6 | 6 |
| St. Louis, MO (631) | 5 | 7 | 5 |
| Washington, DC (200) | 6 | 8 | 3 |
What the markers mean. USPS uses * to indicate a ZIP Code range within the same NDC (Network Distribution Center) as the origin ZIP Code, and + to indicate a ZIP Code range that has 5-digit exceptions. Where a + appears, some individual 5-digit ZIP Codes in that range carry a different zone, so check the full ZIP Code in the USPS tool. None of the ranges in this table carries a + marker.
The summary, per origin
Every figure here is calculated from the 24 rows above, using the zone number with the USPS markers removed.
| Austin, TX | Los Angeles, CA | Newark, NJ | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average zone | 5.67 | 5.96 | 5.79 |
| Metros at Zone 5 or lower | 9 of 24 | 9 of 24 | 10 of 24 |
| Metros at Zone 8 | 0 of 24 | 8 of 24 | 8 of 24 |
| Worst zone | Zone 7 | Zone 8 | Zone 8 |
What the data actually shows
Austin is not closer to everyone. Its average zone, 5.67, is lower than Newark's 5.79 and Los Angeles's 5.96, but the gap is modest. Newark actually has more metros at Zone 5 or lower (10 against Austin's 9), because the Northeast is dense with large metros and a New Jersey warehouse sits right on top of them. Anyone telling you a Texas origin cuts zones to most of the country by a wide margin is overstating it.
The real difference is the worst case. From Austin, none of the 24 metros is Zone 8, and the highest zone to any of them is Zone 7. From Los Angeles, 8 of them are Zone 8. From Newark, 8 are. A coastal origin is excellent for its own coast and poor for the other one. Austin is the outright lowest of the three origins for only 3 of the metros and ties for lowest on 7 more, and it is the outright highest for none. It seldom wins a city on its own, but it is the origin that never leaves a large part of the map in the top zone.
Head to head, Austin is a lower zone than Los Angeles for 15 metros, the same for 1, and higher for 8. Against Newark it is lower for 12, the same for 6, and higher for 6. Which of those matters depends entirely on where your customers are.
So the honest reading is this. If your orders cluster near one coast, a warehouse on that coast will usually beat Austin, and you should use one. If your orders are spread across the country, one Austin origin keeps your far-coast orders out of the top zone, which trims the expensive, slow tail of your shipping rather than transforming the average. That is the whole argument for a Texas 3PL, and it is worth testing against your own order history before you believe it.
What this page does not cover
USPS only. UPS and FedEx each publish their own zone charts for every origin ZIP Code, and their zones do not match USPS. Nothing on this page is a claim about UPS or FedEx zones. If you ship mostly with one of them, pull that carrier's chart for the same three origins and run the same comparison.
Zones, not prices or days. This page reports zones. It does not quote postage, which also depends on weight, dimensions, service and any negotiated rates, and it does not promise transit times, which are USPS service standards and not ours to set.
Zones are revised. This data reflects the USPS chart effective September 1, 2026. USPS updates its charts, so confirm any zone in the Domestic Zone Chart before you rely on it. USPS also explains how its zone charts work in its zone chart FAQ.
Methodology
We pulled every zone from the USPS Domestic Zone Chart at postcalc.usps.com, using the chart effective September 1, 2026. For each origin we entered its 3-digit ZIP Code (787 for Austin, TX, 900 for Los Angeles, CA, 070 for Newark, NJ) and read the zone listed for each destination metro's 3-digit ZIP Code, shown in parentheses in the table. The zones are stored exactly as USPS returned them, and every average and count on this page is calculated from those stored values rather than typed in by hand.
The 24 destinations are large metros chosen to cover every region of the contiguous US. It is not a population-ranked list, and each metro is represented by the 3-digit ZIP Code of its principal city, so suburbs that sit in a different 3-digit ZIP Code area can carry a different zone. San Antonio and Austin itself are not in the list, which if anything leaves out destinations that would favor an Austin origin.
To reproduce any row, open the USPS Domestic Zone Chart, enter the origin 3-digit ZIP Code, and find the destination 3-digit ZIP Code in the results. If you get a different answer, the chart has probably been revised since this page was updated, and we would like to hear about it through our contact page.
If you want to run the same exercise on your own order history rather than on metros, send it to us and we will do it with you. We ship from one warehouse in Austin, described on our Austin 3PL page.