The surcharges on the bill might be assessed at a previous week’s rates. FedEx Ground services and same-day shipment rely on national highway average prices for diesel fuel and changes weekly.įedEx Freight service relies on national average diesel fuel and changes each Monday. For example, the US FedEx fuel surcharge changes weekly and is based on the US Gulf Coast (USGC) spot market price for kerosene-type jet fuel.

FedEx’s fuel surcharge tables are broken down into domestic FedEx Express, import, export, and FedEx Ground services, and they rely on different fuel type pricing indices. The FedEx shipping fuel surcharges are not a simple across-the-board percentage. This is a significant fee to add on to a single parcel, and it adds up quickly. Our study of more than 2.5 million shipments showed an $0.88 average fuel surcharge per package, resulting in $2.2 million in additional costs for those packages. The charge is not calculated the same way as other surcharges. It’s assessed to help FedEx offset fluctuating, and often rising, fuel costs. FuelĪ fuel surcharge is one of the most common FedEx surcharges assessed, and it’s calculated as a percentage of package shipping costs, including other surcharges. Here’s what you need to know about FedEx surcharges in 2019. FedEx posts a menu of surcharges, and there can be individual fees assessed, or an assortment of fees for each parcel, depending on how many conditions apply to that delivery, and the FedEx Service Guide has additional information. Recent history shows that FedEx surcharges and fees change at least twice yearly, with surcharges like fuel adjusting on a weekly basis. One must dig into the billing, preferably with a software platform that tracks and analyzes their overall shipping data and reviewed by someone with expertise, to better understand all the accessorial charges and what’s being paid.Īs a definition, any shipping charges or fees applied to packages that are additional to the carrier’s base rates are surcharges. However, shippers don’t always know about the charges until they appear on the bill, and they may be described as service fees, transportation charges, or handling charges, adding to the confusion. It’s easy to say that a shipper could just negotiate these charges out of the gate, or proactively adjust their packaging or carrier choice parcel by parcel.

In fact, a comprehensive benchmark report we recently published showed that FedEx shipping surcharges were 28% of the total shipping charges, from a sample size which included more than 4.6 million shipments. Just as airline or car rental fees increase the ticket or rental base price, FedEx surcharges substantially increase shipping prices. Shippers need to monitor and negotiate more than just the base price of their FedEx shipping.

Fedex ground zone chart 2019