Does UPS Deliver at Night in 2024? (All You Need to Know)
With the unstoppable rise of e-commerce, customers want and expect deliveries to be fast, convenient, and often round-the-clock. For shipping giants like UPS, this has forced them to adapt their operations to meet rising consumer demands. So what are UPS‘s current policies on nighttime delivery in 2024?
As an expert in logistics and supply chain management, I decided to dig into the data and trends around UPS deliveries after dark. Here‘s everything consumers need to know about receiving UPS packages once the sun goes down.
UPS Delivered Over 21 Million Packages per Day in 2022
UPS has experienced swelling package volumes in recent years. In 2022 alone, they delivered an average of 21.1 million packages per day, up 3.8% from 2021. Over 130 million UPS packages were delivered during the peak holiday season.
With almost a quarter of US ecommerce sales occurring between 10PM to 6AM [1], UPS is having to expand delivery hours to keep up.
Official Night Delivery Policy for 2024
UPS‘s advertised delivery window for residential packages is between 9AM to 7PM Monday through Friday. However, here are the exceptions where UPS will deliver later than 7pm:
Peak holiday seasons: During busy periods like November and December, UPS may deliver residential packages as late as 9PM to accommodate higher order volumes. In 2021, UPS made over 13 million residential deliveries from 9PM to midnight. [2]
Overnight/air packages: Next Day Air or 2nd Day Air packages scheduled for early morning delivery can arrive as late as 9PM the night before for customers near UPS‘s air hubs.
Return routes: For homes located along a driver‘s return route to the UPS center, deliveries may occur between 7PM to as late as 10PM even outside of peak season.
How Late UPS Delivers Year Round
Here is an overview of UPS‘s typical residential delivery windows in 2024:
| Day | Normal Delivery Window | Potential Late Delivery Window |
|---|---|---|
| Monday-Friday | 9AM – 7PM | 7PM – 9PM |
| Saturday | 9AM – 7PM | 7PM – 10PM |
| Sunday | Only in limited areas | N/A |
Deliveries after 7PM are much more common in the peak holiday season between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Scheduling overnight air packages for delivery or living near the end of a UPS route also raises chances of late delivery.
What Impacts the Timing of After-Dark Deliveries
If you‘re expecting a UPS delivery after sunset, several factors influence exactly what time your package arrives:
Location on route – Homes at the end of a route get later deliveries than those at the start. UPS prioritizes businesses first.
Urban vs. rural area – Delivering in dense urban areas with parking limitations takes longer than suburban neighborhoods.
Package volume – The more packages and stops a driver has, the longer into the evening deliveries will continue.
Road conditions – Inclement weather, traffic jams, and construction slow down nighttime delivery.
Priority packages – Overnight air or medical/emergency shipments are prioritized by UPS dispatch.
UPS Night Delivery Continues Growing
Thanks to surging ecommerce package volumes, UPS‘s night deliveries have grown 70% over the last decade. [3] UPS has had to add night sorts at hubs, expand late evening delivery windows, hire new drivers, and leverage technology like ORION dynamic routing to accommodate after dark deliveries.
As a logistics expert, I expect UPS‘s late night deliveries to continue expanding to match consumer demand in 2024. Tracking tools and alerts will be critical for consumers to receive these after-hours packages smoothly.
