Quick answer: The most reliable places to find a fax machine near you are The UPS Store, FedEx Office, Staples and Office Depot — all of which fax at the counter, usually for $1.50–$3 a page. Public libraries are the cheapest, sometimes free. And if you’d rather not hunt one down at all, Municorn Fax turns your phone into the machine — no trip, no per-page fee.
Fax machines used to sit on every office desk, as ordinary as the telephone next to them. These days they’ve quietly vanished from our homes and small offices – and yet the moment a healthcare provider, a solicitor or the tax office asks you to ‘just fax it over’, you’re left wondering where on earth you’re meant to find one. The good news is that faxing itself hasn’t gone anywhere. Whole industries still run on it, largely because a faxed signature is legally accepted in places an emailed one isn’t. So the machines are still out there – you just need to know which doors to walk through.
We’ve spent a good while mapping this cluster of the world – ringing round stores, checking prices, and even surveying twenty libraries to see who actually faxes and for how much. Below is the honest rundown of where to find a fax machine, what each option costs, and which trips are genuinely worth making – plus the places that will only waste your afternoon.
The Best Places to Find a Fax Machine
The UPS Store – the safest bet
If you want the shortest odds of walking out with your fax sent, The UPS Store is where we’d start. With more than 5,500 locations across the US and faxing offered as a standard counter service, you hand your pages to a staff member, they send it, and you leave with a confirmation slip. Expect around $2 for the first local page and $1.50 for each additional page. Each store is independently owned, so prices drift a little by location, but availability is the most dependable on this list – and they’ll receive a fax on your behalf too, handy if you’re waiting on something back from a clinic or a law firm.
FedEx Office – best for late nights
FedEx Office (the old Kinko’s) is the one to remember when it’s six in the evening and something has to go out tonight – plenty of branches keep long hours, and some run around the clock. Faxing lives in their Print & Business centres, from about $1.89 for the first local page and $1.59 for each additional page. Some locations have self-service kiosks, so you can send without queuing for a staff member – worth asking when you arrive.
Staples & Office Depot – the office-supply option
The office-supply chains are a reliable middle ground. Staples fax from their Copy & Print counters, usually the cheapest of the big chains at around $1.79 for a first local page, and Office Depot (now the same company as OfficeMax) tends to have the lowest per-page rates for straightforward domestic faxing. Both have staff on hand during business hours and can hand you a cover sheet if you’ve forgotten yours.
The public library – the cheapest option, if you’re lucky
Your local library is the wildcard – often the cheapest place to fax, and sometimes free, but far from guaranteed. When we surveyed twenty libraries at random across New York, the split was almost even: about a third didn’t offer faxing at all, a third offered it free, and a third charged a small per-page fee much like a store. Even the ‘free’ ones tend to draw the line at large or repeat faxes, so a library is ideal for a page or two but not for a thirty-page bundle. Ring ahead before you drive over – rural and smaller branches are the least likely to have a working machine.
Grocery & financial-services counters – the ones people forget
A few less obvious spots quietly fax too. Most Kroger stores send faxes from the Money Services desk for around $2 first page and $1 after – among the cheapest counters going, though it’s being wound down at some stores, so call first. Postal Annex and, in Florida, Amscot both offer reliable staffed faxing as well. And many banks and credit unions will fax for account holders free of charge – it’s almost never advertised, so you have to ask at the counter, but it can save you a fee entirely.
Fax Machine Locations Compared
| Where | Typical cost | Availability | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| The UPS Store | $2 first / $1.50 add’l (local) | 5,500+ stores | Reliability, send & receive |
| FedEx Office | $1.89 first / $1.59 add’l (local) | Long hours, some 24/7 | Late nights, self-service |
| Staples | $1.79 first (local) | Business hours | Suburban convenience |
| Office Depot | $1.99 first / $1.79 add’l (local) | Business hours | Budget domestic faxes |
| Public library | Free–$1 a page | ~2 in 3 branches | Cheapest, small faxes |
| Kroger | $2 first / $1 add’l | Most stores (winding down) | Cheap multi-page faxes |
| Bank / credit union | Often free (customers) | Ask at the counter | Account holders, no charge |
| Municorn Fax$9.99 / week | Unlimited, no per-page fee | Anywhere, anytime | Skipping the trip entirely |
Places That Do NOT Have a Fax Machine
Before you set off, it’s worth knowing which trips are a dead end. These are the places people most often assume can fax – and can’t:
- Walmart – sells fax machines, but won’t send a fax for you.
- Walgreens & CVS – pharmacy fax machines are for internal use only, not customers, and there’s no public fax number.
- Target – the Business Centers print, copy and scan, but they don’t fax.
- Costco – no public fax service in the warehouses or the Business Center Print & Copy areas.
- USPS post offices – the counter doesn’t fax as standard; a private shipping store is the better bet.
How to Find the Nearest One Fast
Rather than searching ‘fax near me’ and sifting through a mixed bag of results, search the chain by name – ‘UPS Store near me’ or ‘FedEx Office near me’ – then filter by ‘Open now’ to hide anywhere that’s shut. Before you set off, tap through and call: ask ‘do you have fax service available right now, and what’s the price per page?’ It takes thirty seconds and saves the frustration of arriving to a broken machine or a member of staff who’s never used it.
When you go, take five things: your document (printed, or on your phone – most print centres can print from email or a USB stick), the recipient’s fax number with its area code, a cover sheet if they need one, payment by cash or card, and photo ID if you’re faxing anything sensitive like medical or legal paperwork.
Or Skip the Machine Entirely
Here’s the thing we keep coming back to: for most people, the best place to find a fax machine is no machine at all. Once you’re past a page or two, the per-page charges at any counter add up quickly – a ten-page fax at a store can easily run $15–$20 – and that’s before the drive and the queue. Municorn Fax turns your phone into the machine: scan a document with the camera or pull one in from cloud storage, type the fax number, and send, with a delivery confirmation when it lands. You get your own dedicated fax number to receive on too, it’s a flat $9.99 a week for unlimited pages, and because it’s HIPAA-compliant it’s safe for the medical, legal and tax documents a shared store machine can’t promise to protect. No trip, no line, no hunting for the nearest open branch.
