Shipping plants by USPS

Yes, USPS will take them

Publication 52 is the Postal Service's own manual for hazardous, restricted and perishable mail, and section 56 is about plants. Its first line is the answer most people come for: plants and plant products are mailable within the United States, its territories and possessions.

The rest of that line is the part to hold on to. They are mailable subject to the prohibitions and restrictions federal agricultural and conservation statutes impose, and a plant becomes nonmailable at the point those restrictions make sending it unlawful. So nothing here is a USPS decision about plants; it is USPS carrying whatever agriculture law allows to move.

Plants also count as perishable matter, which is why they appear in Publication 52 at all, and why the packing rules below are stricter than for an ordinary parcel.

Label the box

This is the one to take away. Some states run what is called terminal inspection, which means plant packages arriving there get looked at. Mailing a plant to one of those states in an unmarked box is unlawful under the Terminal Inspection Act, and there is a monetary penalty attached to it.

What the law asks for is a statement on the outside of the package that fully and conspicuously identifies the contents. In practice: write what is in it, on the outside, where somebody can read it. "Live plants" on the box is the whole compliance story.

There is no published list of which states run terminal inspection — USPS points you at an address rather than printing one — so the safe move is to label every plant package rather than work out whether this one counts.

The state it’s going to still decides

States are allowed to set their own plant health rules for things moving between states, and when an inspector opens a package the question they ask is whether it was moved in violation of a USDA quarantine or of the receiving state's own law. Posting it does not route around that.

So the question worth answering before you pack is the same one this whole site answers: what does the state it is going to ask for? California, Florida, Hawaii, and the rest.

If it is not allowed, it is destroyed

Not returned to sender. When an inspector finds plants that are infested, or that were moved against a quarantine, the postmaster notifies the sender and the plants are destroyed by the state authorities — unless the sender makes arrangements to reclaim them, which means acting fast and from a long way away.

Separately, anything capable of carrying a dangerous plant disease or pest is nonmailable out of a quarantined area altogether, unless it has been inspected and certified under the terms of that quarantine.

Packing

USPS is specific. Wet packing material and the roots or butts of plants get wrapped or boxed in something waterproof. The tops need a protective covering — paper, straw or similar — so the plant does not get crushed or dry out. Anything with thorns needs a puncture-proof wrapper.

Plants also count as perishable, so they travel at your risk and carry an extra handling fee. And packing something beautifully does not make it legal: USPS says plainly that meeting the packaging rules changes nothing about the illegality of mailing a plant that is nonmailable in the first place.

Posting out of Hawaii, Puerto Rico or the USVI

The inspection happens before the post office, not after. Every agricultural item has to be inspected by APHIS and found pest free before you take the package to a counter, a courier or an airline cargo office. Sending prohibited items through the mail can carry criminal or civil penalties.

One quirk worth knowing for Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands: APHIS treats anything sent by mail as commercial, even when it is a present for your sister. "Personal use" means it is in your bag or your car.

More on the same journey by air: flying with plants.

If you use a private carrier

Everything above is the Postal Service's rulebook, and it governs the mail. Publication 52 and Publication 14 say nothing about anyone else's van. But the agricultural rules are not about who drives — APHIS publishes a factsheet specifically on shipping plants and agricultural products by express courier, and its instruction for moving them inside the United States is one sentence long, with no carrier named in it.

Never mail or ship plants or other agricultural items from areas within the United States under Federal or State quarantine for an invasive pest or you may spread them to new areas.

APHIS's advice for finding out whether that is you is to call your local USDA office and ask whether any quarantine applies to your shipment. And then the arriving state's rule applies on top, exactly as it does to the mail.

UPS

The quarantine rule above and the destination state's rule both apply to a UPS shipment — they attach to the plant, not to the carrier. What UPS itself will accept, how it wants live plants packed, and what it pays out if they arrive dead are UPS's own terms and are not archived here, so this page does not tell you what they say. Ask UPS before you book, and take the agricultural side as settled by the two paragraphs above whatever the answer is.

FedEx

The same position, for the same reason. FedEx's own terms are not archived here either, so nothing on this page is a paraphrase of them. The part that does not change with the carrier is the part that is on this page: not out of a quarantined area, and whatever the receiving state asks for.

One thing worth saying plainly, because the opposite is widely assumed: choosing a private carrier does not get a plant out from under a quarantine or a state entry rule. It only changes who is holding the box when someone asks.