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Collect the first 176 Years of United States Stamps! Click here to get started!
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2022 USPS Stamp IssuesAll are First Class Forever Rate stamps unless indicated. For each of these issues, the deadline is 120 days after the issue date. TBD = To Be Determined; PSA = Pressure-sensitive Adhesive; A Forever stamp is always equal in value to the current First-Class Mail one-ounce rate when used on a one-ounce envelope. Stamp Issues:
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Stamp Issues 2022 |
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Hanukkah Forever Stamp The Postal Service continues its tradition of celebrating the joyous Jewish holiday of Hanukkah with a stamp design that features an original wall-hanging. The fiber art was hand-dyed, appliquéd and quilted to form a colorful abstract image of a hanukiah, the nine-branch candelabra used only at Hanukkah. The festival is observed by lighting the candles of a candelabrum with nine branches, commonly called a menorah or hanukkiah. One branch is typically placed above or below the others and its candle is used to light the other eight candles. Jeanette Kuvin Oren was the stamp designer and artist. Ethel Kessler was the art director. In 2022 Hanukkah begins on the evening of December 18 and ends on the evening of December 26. |
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Women Cryptologists of World War II Forever Stamp This stamp honors all of the women cryptologists of World War II. One of the conflict’s best-kept secrets, their service played an inestimable role in the Allied victory. Established in July 1942, the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) were part of the U.S. Naval Reserve. The key to the Purple code was discovered by a female cryptologist with the U.S. Army’s Signal Intelligence Service. The stamp art features an image from a World War II–era WAVES recruitment poster with an overlay of characters from the “Purple” code, used by the Japanese government to encrypt diplomatic messages. In the pane selvage, seemingly random letters can be deciphered to reveal some key words. The reverse side of the pane discloses the cipher needed to read the words. The National Security Agency Headquarters and the National Cryptologic Museum are located in Annapolis Junction. |
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Kwanzaa Forever Stamp In 2022 the Postal Service issues its ninth stamp in celebration of Kwanzaa, a holiday with origins in ancient and modern first-harvest festivities from across the African continent. Kwanzaa incorporates and reimagines many communal traditions as a contemporary celebration and reaffirmation of African American culture. The stamp design depicts a girl and a boy dressed in robes akin to spiritual garments, with a kinara (candleholder) and seven lit candles (mishumaa saba) in front of them. The kinara is the focal point around which friends and family gather and place meaningful objects. In 2022 Kwanzaa begins on December 26 and ends on January 1. Art director Antonio Alcalá designed the stamp with original artwork by Erin Robinson. |
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Snowy Beauty Forever Stamps Bringing to 24 the number of U.S. 2022 stamps devoted to floral themes, these stamps celebrate the warmth and cheer that flowers and berries bring to our natural landscapes, even after a surprise snow. In these hand-sketched and painted designs, the artist uses light, shadow and luminous color to evoke the beauty of 10 species: camellia, winter aconite, crocus, hellebore, winterberry, pansy, plum blossom, grape hyacinth, daffodil and ranunculus. Derry Noyes designed the stamps with original oil paintings by Gregory Manchess. |
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Peanuts Forever Stamps Ten new stamps salute the birth centennial of cartoonist Charles M. Schulz whose “Peanuts” characters are some of the best known and most beloved in all of American culture. For five decades, Schulz alone wrote and drew nearly 18,000 strips, the last one published the day after he died. Each character reflects Schulz’s rich imagination and great humanity. His resonant stories found humor in life’s painful realities including rejection, insecurity and unrequited love. The ten Peanuts stamps form a frame around a 1987 photograph of Schulz. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamps from Schulz’s artwork and an existing photograph by Douglas Kirkland. Santa Rosa is home to the Charles M. Schulz Museum and Research Center. Schulz moved his home and studio to Santa Rosa in 1969, and lived there for the rest of his life. The regional airport is named in his honor and bronze Peanuts sculptures grace the airport and downtown’s historic Railroad Square. |
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Virgin and Child Forever Stamp This year’s Virgin and Child stamp features "Virgin and Child," an oil-on-panel painting from the first half of the 16th century by a Florentine artist known as the Master of the Scandicci Lamentation. This painting is in the collection of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Per Wikipedia, the artist, whose name is Francesco Granacci, was born in 1469 and was trained in Florence in the workshop of Domenico Ghirlandaio. His earliest works show the strong influence of Ghirlandaio as well as Filippino Lippi, who might have been Granacci’s first master. of particular interest, Granacci was a lifelong friends of Michelangelo and was among the artists who were asked to help Michelangelo with the Sistine chapel ceiling. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp. |
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Holiday Elves Forever Stamps The Postal Service evokes the holiday spirit with four new se-tenant stamps featuring a colorful digital illustration of elves preparing toys on a winding conveyor belt in a snow-laden forest. Like many beloved Christmas traditions—including Santa Claus himself—elves did not become a well-established part of the holidays in America until—the 19th century. In the 20th century, as elves became firmly rooted in American Christmas lore, they eventually became part of holiday television specials, films and books. Santa’s home, North Pole, Alaska, is known for its year-round Christmas decorations, including candy cane–striped street lights. Streets have names like Kris Kringle Drive and Mistletoe Lane. The USPS has a Santa Letters program through which children’s letters from Santa are mailed with a North Pole postmark. Don Clark was the artist and stamp designer. Antonio Alcalá was the art director. |
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James Webb Space Telescope Forever Stamp This stamp recognizes NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope. The largest and most complex telescope ever deployed in space, it is capable of peering directly into the early cosmos and studying every phase of cosmic history. Launched on Dec. 25, 2021, Webb now orbits the Sun about a million miles away from Earth. The image on the stamp is an artist’s digitally created depiction of the telescope against a dazzling starscape. A photograph of a star and distant space in the full pane margin was taken by Webb early in its mission, brilliantly confirming the perfect alignment of the telescope’s 18 mirror segments. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp using existing art by James Vaughan and an image provided by NASA/Space Telescope Science Institute. |
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Pony Cars Forever Stamps Over the past six decades, pony cars have become a uniquely American obsession, bringing a youthful spirit to the automotive world. These stamps celebrate five iconic U.S. automobiles — the 1969 Ford Mustang Boss 302, the 1970 Dodge Challenger R/T, the 1969 Chevrolet Camaro Z/28, the 1967 Mercury Cougar XR-7 GT and the 1969 AMC Javelin SST. The bold and dramatic artwork, painted with oils on panel, captures the energy and mystique of pony cars. |
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Elephants Forever Stamp This lighthearted and playful stamp celebrates America’s affection for elephants. A graphic illustration of an elephant interacting with its young calf represents the loving nature of these beloved animals. Two stylized plants and a bright orange sun add whimsy and color. The First Day site, Hohenwald, Tenn., is the home of the The Elephant Sanctuary, the largest natural-habitat sanctuary for elephants in the U.S. |
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National Marine Sanctuaries Forever Stamps For 50 years, U.S. marine sanctuaries and marine national monuments have protected areas with special ecological, cultural and historical significance. Each of the 16 stamps on the pane features a photograph from a site that is part of the National Marine Sanctuary System, showcasing some of our nation’s precious natural treasures. A map of the National Marine Sanctuary System is printed on the back of the pane. Santa Cruz is home to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. Overlooking the Pacific Ocean, it is one of America’s largest marine sanctuaries. |
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Buzz Lightyear Forever Stamps Previewed on June 8 at the red-carpet premiere of Disney and Pixar’s "Lightyear," the new movie featuring Buzz Lightyear, this pane of 20 stamps, is titled “Go Beyond” by the USPS, with that name on each stamp. The fictional character is a Space Ranger superhero, part of the highly popular Toy Story franchise. He was given the name Buzz in honor of Apollo 11 astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin, the second person to walk on the Moon. |
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Pete Seeger Forever Stamps The 10th stamp in the Music Icons series honors Pete Seeger (1919-2014), a champion of traditional music and its power to inspire activism. Seeger’s clear tenor voice, iconic banjo and enormous charisma transformed concerts into singalongs. The stamp art features a color-tinted black-and-white photograph of Seeger singing and playing his banjo in the early 1960s, by Dan Seeger, the performer’s son. One side of the pane includes 16 stamps and the image of a sliver of a record seeming to peek out the top of the sleeve. A larger version of the stamp art photograph appears on the reverse side. Pete Seeger played a key role in the founding and growth of the world-famous Newport Folk Festival. |
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Mariachi Forever Stamps Filled with passion, rhythm and stories of life, love and loss, mariachi music is an integral element of Mexican American culture that has become deeply rooted in the United States and has fans around the world. Each of the five stamps in this pane of 20 features a musician dressed in a traje de charro, the traditional outfit of mariachi performers, playing one of five iconic mariachi instruments: a guitar, an acoustic bass guitar called a guitarrón, a high-pitched stringed instrument known as a vihuela, a violin and a trumpet. Rafael López designed the stamps and created the art. Derry Noyes was the art director. The July 15 first day of issue coincides with the opening day of the 2022 Mariachi Spectacular Showcase, with performances from elementary school to open competition winners, who travel to Albuquerque to perform. |
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First Lady Nancy Reagan Forever Stamp Born July 6, 1921 in New York City as Anne Frances Robbins, the future First Lady of the United States was enjoying a film career, as Nancy Davis, when she married Ronald Reagan in 1952, who at that time was president of the Screen Actors Guild. She served as First Lady beside her husband during his two terms in office, from January 1981 to January 1989. During her years of service as First Lady, one of her primary interests was recreational drug prevention and the founding of the “Just Say No” campaign. The stamp art is a detail from the official 1987 White House portrait by Aaron Shikler. The oil-on-canvas portrait features Mrs. Reagan dressed in her signature red color, in a flowing gown designed by James Galanos. The full-body portrait was cropped to accommodate the stamp format. There have been suggestions that all First Ladies should be honored on stamps. To date the only ones so honored have been Martha Washington, Dolley Madison, Abigail Adams, Eleanor Roosevelt and Lady Bird Johnson. |
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Floral Geometry $2 and $5 Rate Stamps The two similarly designed Floral Geometry stamps, denominated at $2 and $5, lend an elegant and contemporary appearance to packages, large envelopes and other mailings. The stamp art features a series of overlapping geometric shapes that mimic the symmetry of floral patterns found in nature. The watercolor backgrounds and the glimmer of the foil-stamped designs and typography create a sophisticated look. The stamps were designed and created by the firm Spaeth Hill. Antonio Alcalá was the art director. They replace the 2018 $1, $2 and $5 stamps that featured the head of the Statue of Freedom on the U.S. Capitol Dome, still one more issue that has transitioned from historical to floral designs. |
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Distinguished Americans, Katharine Graham, Two-Ounce Stamp The 17th stamp in the Distinguished Americans series honors Katharine Graham (1917-2001), the first female head of a Fortune 500 company and a pivotal figure during turbulent moments in American history. The stamp features an oil portrait of Graham, based on a photograph taken in the 1970s, during the peak of her influence as owner and president of The Washington Post Co., where she was also publisher of its flagship newspaper. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp with original art by Lynn Staley. |
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Mighty Mississippi Forever Stamps The issue honors the Mississippi river with a portfolio of ten different photographic images. Arranged on the pane in five rows of two stamps each, the images correspond to the states’ north-south and west-east sequence along the Mississippi River. Small type on the margin of each stamp indicates its location: |
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Women’s Rowing Forever Stamps These stamps celebrate women’s rowing, a graceful but demanding sport in which American women have excelled, including in the Olympics. The artwork, which covers the entire pane, is a stylized illustration of five eight-person rowing teams competing or practicing. Four stamp designs are featured in a pane of 20 stamps arranged as five staggered rows of four. |
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Eugenie Clark Forever Stamp Affectionately known as the “Shark Lady,” pioneering marine biologist Eugenie Clark (1922-2015) spent her career working tirelessly to change public perception about sharks as well as to preserve marine environments around the world. The stamp art features a digital collage, including a photograph of Clark and a lemon shark. Wavy blue elements in the background evoke an undersea scene. |
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George Morrison Forever Stamps One of the nation’s greatest modernist artists and a founding figure of Native American modernism, George Morrison (1919-2000) challenged prevailing ideas of what Native American art should be, arguing that an artist’s identity can exist independently from the nature of the art he creates. Morrison is best known for his abstract landscapes and monumental wood collages. A pane of 20 colorful stamps showcases five of Morrison’s artworks. |
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Flags on Barns Presort Standard Rate Stamps Painted flags can be found on barns in almost every region of the United States. Four colorful pencil and watercolor illustrations of flags on barns grace the latest issuance of stamps available for bulk-mail users. The barns are set in landscapes inspired by the seasons and different regions of the United States. Stephanie Bower designed and illustrated the stamps. Antonio Alcalá was the art director. When a mailer presorts mail so that it is sorted to the finest extent required by the standards of the price claimed, the benefit is significant savings on postage as the mailer is doing some of the work Postal People would otherwise have to do. |
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Shel Silverstein Forever Stamp The USPS announcement for this stamp reads: “The extraordinarily versatile Shel Silverstein (1930–1999) was one of the 20th century‘s most imaginative authors and illustrators. His picture book “The Giving Tree” and his quirky poetry collections are beloved by children everywhere. The stamp art features a version of the illustration of a boy catching an apple that appears on the cover of “The Giving Tree.” Published in 1964, the best-selling tale of selflessness is considered a children’s literature classic. Art director Derry Noyes designed the stamp.” But there was much more to Silverstein’s versatility. From Wikipidia, just a few of many works: “his cartoons appeared in issues of Playboy from 1957 through the mid-1970s; Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book (1961), his first book [was] of new, original material for adults; Silverstein also wrote Cash’s biggest hit, ‘A Boy Named Sue’ [and] lyrics and music for most of the Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show songs on their first few albums; Silverstein had a popular following on Dr. Demento's radio show; wrote more than 100 one-act plays.” |
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Sunflower Bouquet Two-Ounce Stamp The Sunflower Bouquet 2-ounce stamp features an array of sunflowers, irises and other small flowers priced to accommodate the weight of heavy invitations, oversize greeting cards and other mailings that require extra postage. The Sunflower Bouquet stamp is similar in design to the new Tulips Forever stamp, and the two form a natural pair. |
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Tulip Forever Stamp The Tulips Forever stamp features a luminous, almost ethereal assortment of overlapping tulips in red, orange, yellow, purple and white against a bright white background. Similar in design to the 2-ounce Sunflower Bouquet stamp, this stamp can be used on RSVP envelopes often enclosed with wedding invitations. In addition to regular correspondence, it is also perfect for party invitations, thank-you notes and important announcements. This stamp was designed by art director Ethel Kessler, with digital photography by Harold Davis. |
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African Daisy Global Forever Rate Stamp This round, Global stamp can be used to mail a 1-ounce letter or postcard to any country to which First-Class Mail International service is available. This Forever stamp will have a postage value equivalent to the price of the single-piece First-Class Mail International 1-ounce machineable letter in effect at the time of use ($1.30 as of January 1, 2022). The latest version of the Global Forever Rate issues features the intricate design of a colorful African daisy, photographed from above. Native to southern Africa and often called the African daisy, plants from the Osteospermum genus are widely available in U.S. nurseries. Greg Breeding designed the stamp with existing photography by Cindy Dyer. William Gicker was the art director. |
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Mountain Flora Forever Stamp These four new stamps celebrate the beauty of mountain flowers. Each Mountain Flora stamp features a different flower: a purple pasqueflower, an orange-red wood lily, a bright yellow alpine buttercup and a dark pink Woods’ rose. The artist’s hand-drawn illustrations, refined digitally, create a block-print aesthetic. |
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Title IX Forever Stamp This stamp release commemorates the 50th anniversary of the passage of Title IX, the civil rights law prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex in any educational program or activity receiving federal financial assistance. Applied at educational institutions over a wide range of programs, its most visible impact has been on school athletics. Four different stamps feature dark blue silhouettes of one of four female athletes: a runner, a swimmer, a gymnast and a soccer player. Yellow laurel branches, symbolic of victory, rest in their hair and on the swimmer’s cap. |
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Palace of Fine Arts $26.95 Express Mail Stamp An eye-catching sight in the Marina District of San Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts has long been a source of pride for residents and an attraction for visitors from around the world. This Priority Mail Express stamp celebrates the iconic architectural landmark. The stamp features a digital illustration showing the rotunda and part of the colonnades of the Palace of Fine Arts, with a small lagoon in the foreground. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp with original art by Dan Cosgrove. It was originally constructed for the 1915 Panama-Pacific Exposition, which was previewed on a set of 1913 U.S. stamps. Completely renovated between 1964 and 1974, it is now a commercially operated venue that is available for weddings, corporate, and other events. |
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Monument Valley $8.95 Priority Mail Stamp This Priority Mail stamp celebrates Monument Valley, which is located on the Utah-Arizona state line and is officially a large area that includes much of the surrounding Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park, a Navajo Nation equivalent to a national park. For hundreds of millions of years, materials that eroded from the early Rock Mountains deposited layer upon layer of sediment. Natural forces of wind and water that eroded the land spent the last 50 million years cutting into and peeling away at the surface of the plateau. The simple wearing down of altering layers of soft and hard rock slowly revealed the natural wonders of Monument Valley today. The digital illustration is based on photographs of Monument Valley, including a view facing northwest at sunrise. Art director Greg Breeding designed the stamp with original art by Dan Cosgrove. |
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Butterfly Garden Flowers Nondenominated Stamp (5¢ assigned value) The two nondenominated Butterfly Garden Flowers stamps are intended for bulk mailings by authorized nonprofit organizations. Each stamp features one of two flowers that butterflies love to visit: scabiosas or cosmos. Inspired by block-printed textile and pattern design, the artist hand-carved the images into linoleum blocks. After inking the blocks, she pressed them onto paper, scanned the images and added color digitally. Mailers find that their mail is more likely to be opened if there is a stamp on the envelope rather than a printed non-stamp indicia, thus the use of these non-denominated stamps. The mailer purchases the stamps at 5¢ each, then make up the difference between that 5¢ and the going rate for their mail, which depends in part on how they prepare it. Pine Mountain was selected as the FDOI site because it is the location of the Cecil B. Day Butterfly Center, where typically 1,000 or more butterflies flutter freely about in one of North America’s largest tropical butterfly conservatories. The Day Butterfly Center is a living, dynamic, glass-enclosed environment in which a variety of tropical plants nourish the residents and new arrivals emerge from their chrysalides, dry their wings, and begin their very first wing-beats. The Pine Mountain area also includes Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park and is not far from the Warm Springs “Little White House” where Roosevelt would go to restore himself during his years in office, and which is pictured on a 1945 commemorative. |
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Black Heritage, Edmonia Lewis Forever Stamp The 45th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors sculptor Edmonia Lewis (circa 1844-1907). As the first African American and Native American sculptor to achieve international recognition, Lewis challenged social barriers and assumptions about artists in mid-19th century America. The stamp art is a casein-on-wood portrait of Lewis, based on a photograph taken in Boston between 1864 and 1871. |
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Lunar New Year, Year of the Tiger Forever Stamp The third of 12 stamps in the latest Lunar New Year stamp series celebrates the Year of the Tiger. Calling to mind the elaborately decorated masks used in the dragon or lion dances often performed in Lunar New Year parades, this three-dimensional mask depicting a tiger is a contemporary take on the long tradition of paper-cut folk art crafts created during this auspicious time of year. The tiger mask design incorporates colors and patterns symbolic to the holiday. The tiger is the third of the 12 zodiac animal signs associated with the Chinese lunar calendar. As with other zodiac signs, personality traits and other attributes are often associated with people born in the year of a particular animal. Those born during the Year of the Tiger may be seen as brave, confident and well-liked by others. Blue, orange and gray are lucky colors for Tigers, and yellow lilies and cineraria flowers may also bring good luck. |
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Love Flowers Forever Stamps The two new Love stamps celebrate the joy that flowers bring. Inspired by old European folk art, the stamps feature digital illustrations with similar designs: three round, stylized blooms ranging symmetrically along the top, with smaller round blossoms in each of the lower corners. Twisting vines, which hold small multi-petaled flowers, form abstract heart shapes. The letters of the word “LOVE” are interspersed among the decorative vines. The Postal People remind us that, while the stamps are being issued in advance for use on Valentine’s greetings, the Love theme can be applied all year round. The town was named Romeo because the founders wanted something romantic. On February 14 of each year, the village of Romeo offers a special dual postmark with the community of Juliette, Georgia. |
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Blueberries 4¢ Stamp The new 4-cent Blueberries stamp features a pen, ink and watercolor illustration of a cluster of blueberries and leaves. Blueberries will join other similarly designed low-denomination stamps: 1-cent Apples, 2-cent Meyer Lemons, 3-cent Strawberries, 5-cent Grapes and 10-cent Pears. |
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US Flags Forever Stamp The latest U.S. flag stamp art is a painting of three flags in a circular formation, reminiscent of the 50 flags encircling the Washington Monument. The artist used three photographs of the same flag taken seconds apart as reference and stitched together the images into a single composition. Findlay was officially recognized as "Flag City, USA" on May 7, 1974. |
| Stamp images provided by the United States Postal Service. Copyright © 2022 USPS. All Rights Reserved. |
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