How To Get Mail Delivered To A Tiny House

One thing I hadn’t considered until well after I moved into my tiny home was the ability to get mail, packages, and other items delivered to my tiny house. I wondered, how do tiny houses get their mail? Well, I wasn’t able to find the answer online, so I thought I’d share how I was able to get an address and mail delivered to my tiny home.

Getting An Address For A Tiny Home

Getting an address can be very tricky for a tiny house if you’re not building it to code. When a home is granted a permit, it triggers a whole host of actions including utilities, taxes, trash, and the assigning of an address. If the land you’re living on is empty or only has your tiny home on it, you’re most likely not going to be able to get an official address.

If you’re not up to code, trust me, you don’t even want to start down this road, because it will trigger a lot of inquiries and even city officials stopping by your property, which could lead to them condemning your tiny house.

Can A Tiny House Share An Address With A Traditional House?

Kind of. Technically speaking, you’d need to go back to the county or city and have them assign a secondary address to the main house. When considering if you want to do this or not, a simple phone call inquiring what’s involved to your local municipal office should be pretty clarifying.

In some places this will actually trigger some new designations, checking of zoning to see if “multi-family” units are allowed, or other zoning designations. This may also lead to an adjustment of taxes or require an additional permit or license to get the address assigned.

Alternatively, you could just try adding a new box. It’s pretty easy to add an additional box to the traditional home and label it with your address number + a letter — 989 B, for example. Usually the mail delivery worker is so busy, they will not ask questions.

Lastly, you can simply have your mail delivered to the main house and sort it there.

Can I Just Put Up A Mailbox To Get Mail Delivered?

In general, no. Most places require you to apply and be assigned an address. That said, I’ve had friends who live in a tiny house do just this and it worked. She just put up a new mailbox, added a house number that seemed to be right in comparison to her neighbors, and soon enough she was getting mail.

How I Get My Mail Delivered

The way I ended up getting an address was by first having water set up on the property as a utility. When I applied, I stated the water line was going to be used for landscaping only. I paid the permit and connection fees — a whopping $2,200 — and in about six weeks, the city came out and installed the water tap to the edge of my driveway.

From there, I asked the city to remove the waste water fee, which required a site visit by an inspector. The reason I did this is because my city charges you for the water, but then also charges you to take the water back. The fee for waste water is three times the price of water in the first place, so this saved me 75% on my water bill. I never mentioned the intention to have a tiny house there at all in this process.

It was about two weeks after this inspection that I put in a driveway, ran the water line, and brought my tiny house on the land for the first time. This allowed me to get my water bill, which they’re fine sending to another address at first.

That water bill can then be used to get a driver’s license with your street address on it. From there, I took my water bill and my driver’s license and went to a local UPS store and secured a rental box, which allowed me to get mail, packages, and more all to that address.

This may sound complicated, but I never really planned it out in advance. I just needed water there, which got me a water bill. I went to re-up my driver’s license and they needed a proof of address. That gave me the license, which they asked for when I went to get a box.

How To Get Packages Delivered To A Tiny House

In general, UPS and FedEx care even less about if your address is official, as long as they can find it on google maps. For me, I just added a post with a house number and I received packages without any issue. For the most part, since I have a box, I get my packages sent there because they sign for it and an email is sent to me when they accept it.
Lastly, you can get Amazon packages delivered to one of their lockers, which are pretty much everywhere these days.

Benefits Of A Rental Box Over A Post Office Box

I had thought about getting a Post Office box, but going with a UPS Store box afforded me a few benefits. First, unlike the P.O. Box, the UPS Store is an actual street address. There are many places that will not deliver or accept an address that’s a P.O. Box, but a UPS address is no problem.

Second, a Post Office box will only accept packages that are sent via USPS, while the UPS Store will accept anything. They also automatically generate an email to you when the package arrives and remind you a few days later, which is really nice for me because I don’t get a lot of packages and don’t check too often.

Finally, I find that my UPS Store rental box doesn’t get junk mail like a normal address. That is huge! I want to live more simply, so not having junk mail helps with that.

Can You Live In A Tiny House Without An Address

If you’re okay living off the grid or hooking up via a main house on the property, then it’s totally possible to live without an address. You may need to have a formal address somewhere to do your taxes and get a driver’s license, but other than that, you can live life without an address.

Using Family’s Address As Your Home Base

This is another good option. For a while I used my sister’s address as my formal address and it worked out pretty well. My one tip is that you usually want someone in the same state as you for simplicity when it comes to taxes and vehicle registration.

Mail Forwarding Services

There are many services out there for RVers, Van Lifers, and other nomadic folks. These services will receive your mail, scan it, and then hold onto the physical mail for a certain number of days.

You’ll receive a scanned image of all the mail you receive via email. Some will then either bundle the mail up and send it to you and others have a window where you can request certain pieces be mailed to you.

These services start at about $10 per month and go up from there. It’s a great way to get your mail if you don’t know where you’ll be in the foreseeable future. Once you find a place you’ll be for about a week, you let the mail forwarding service know the address and they’ll bundle things to you via UPS or FedEx.

Mail Forwarding Comparison

Escapees RV Club

My RV Mail

Traveling Mailbox

USA 2 Me

Your Turn!

• How do you get mail at your tiny house?
• What tips do you have for getting mail without an address?

By Ryan Mitchell on May 6, 2021   /   Tiny House   /   2 Comments

Tags: Tiny Home