BURSTCanada Post is reporting $1.75 billion in losses before taxes for 2025, an 86.7-per-cent increase from the previous year.
The Crown corporation released its 2025 annual report Monday (April 20), noting its financial situation “deteriorated significantly” last year as “labour uncertainty weighed on the business, and decades-old rules and frameworks continued to impede the company’s modernization and its ability to compete.”
The 2025 losses were an increase of $728 million, or 86.7 per cent, compared to the losses before tax of $841 million in 2024. At the time, that was Canada Post’s largest loss before tax on record.
The release from Canada Post added that the Crown corporation’s financial situation “underscores the urgency” for the company to transform and “meet the modern needs of the country.”
Canada Post says that transformation is “critical” for the company to move away from taxpayer-funded cash injections.
In 2025, Canada Post received repayable government funding of $1.034 billion. That funding was intended to carry the Crown corporation through the government’s fiscal year ending March 31, 2026.
But Canada Post says that funding was “insufficient due to the severity” of its financial situation, and in early 2026, the federal government approved up to $1.008 billion in additional repayable funding.
Declining revenues
In 2025, revenue declined by $315 million, or 4.7 per cent, compared to 2024.
Canada Post says parcel volumes “fell sharply,” by 79 million pieces, largely due to labour uncertainty throughout 2025. It was a decline of $850 million compared to 2024.
“Given the impact on customers, the lost parcel volumes will be challenging to win back – emphasizing the need to modernize Canada Post’s services in a competitive market,” the release from Canada Post says.
However, transaction mail rose by $564 million, or 26.2 per cent, in 2025, with an increase of 39 million pieces. Canada Post notes that transaction mail continues to be in a secular decline, but a postage rate increase in January 2025 and a volume bump due to election mailings helped.
Direct marketing also declined by $46 million in 2025, a 9.8-per-cent drop compared to 2024. The Crown corporation says revenue and volumes decreased due to labour uncertainty, including a ban on the delivery of Canada Post neighbourhood mail items in the second half of 2025 as marketers looked to avoid having their time-sensitive mailings not be trapped in the postal network.
Labour issues persisted
Canada Post and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers were in and out of labour negotiations in 2025. The union also issued a nation-wide strike in September.
The two parties reached tentative agreements in December 2025. Monday marked the start of union members voting on the ratification.
However, the union has expressed concern in recent weeks as Canada Post has detailed some of its plans for transformation with the aim of improving service and returning to financial self-sustainability.
Canada Post’s future plans
Canada Post announced April 16 its plans over the next five years to convert the remaining addresses to community mailboxes – just one part of it’s federal-government mandated “transformation.”
It expects the conversion to take about five years, with work in the first 13 communities expected to begin in late 2026 and early 2027.
Door-to-door delivery costs about 75 per cent more than delivery to a community mailbox at $284 per address compared to $162, according to the May 2025 Industrial Inquiry Commission’s report into the state of Canada Post.
The report was bleak, noting that the Crown corporation was facing an existential crisis and is “effectively insolvent, or bankrupt. As part of the report, commissioner William Kaplan recommended ending door-to-door home delivery and lifting the moratoriums on rural post office closures and community mailbox conversions.
Canada Post announced March 30 it would be taking the next steps to convert the country’s remaining 25 per cent of addresses that still receive door-to-door delivery to community mailboxes.
Federal Government Transformation Minister Joël Lightbound, in September 2025, accepted all the recommendations in the Industrial Inquiry Commission report and directed Canada Post to modernize to stabilize its finances. That included the remaining community mailbox conversions.
Lightbound gave Canada Post 45 days to submit a plan. The Crown corporation submitted it right on deadline in early November 2025, detailing a five-point “comprehensive transformation plan.”
Part of Canada Post’s transformation plan includes retail modernization.
Canada Post says Canadians are visiting post offices less frequently and making fewer in-store purchases, which has led to a 30-per-cent drop in retail revenues since 2021 and usage is “uneven” across the network.
That modernization is starting with market reviews to “gather and validate” operational data of local post offices, providing Canada Post with an accurate and up-to-date view of each location.