Franking and penalty privileges are ways of sending official matter through the United States mails without prepayment of postage. The Vice President, members of and delegates to Congress, and certain other officials of Congress use the franking privilege. They use it to mail official correspondence, public documents, the Congressional Record, seeds, and agricultural reports. The mailer puts his or her signature or its facsimile on each piece of mail instead of a postage stamp. Widows of former Presidents may frank all their domestic mail. Congress appropriates money to pay the U.S. Postal Service for the postage involved in these franking privileges.
Departments, offices, and agencies of the executive branch of the government use the penalty privilege without prepayment of postage for mailing official matter. Each item bears a printed clause citing the penalty for private use of this privilege. Each division pays the Postal Service the amount of postage chargeable on its penalty mail at regular postal rates.
