The News
The US Postal Service will add a fuel surcharge to its packages in January 2027 and reset it every week, according to an FAQ on its PostalPro site. It covers Ground Advantage, Parcel Select, Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express.
The surcharge is a percentage of base postage on domestic packages. Shippers with negotiated contracts “may have customized language,” the FAQ says.
In March, USPS said it had “steadfastly avoided surcharges” when it announced a temporary 8% price increase.
The details
The surcharge will follow the same Energy Information Administration fuel prices that FedEx and UPS use. Ground Advantage and Parcel Select will track diesel. Priority Mail and Priority Mail Express will track jet fuel.
USPS will post each new percentage three to five days before it takes effect for diesel products, and three to four days before for jet fuel products.
Shippers will get the current and upcoming rates through USPS’s existing pricing and label APIs.
Packages paid at an outdated rate will be charged postage due.
USPS has not published the percentages or the exact start date.
The FAQ gives the start only as “January 2027.”
The FAQ cites no filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission.
USPS also has not said whether the weekly surcharge replaces the temporary 8% increase. The 8% and a separate 6% peak increase both end on Jan 17, 2027.
In March, USPS called the 8% “a necessary bridge to a permanent mechanism.”
The USPS Board of Governors’ order on the peak increase says prices go back to normal on Jan 17 “unless the Governors take further action.”
USPS shipping and packages revenue rose 7.7% in its fiscal third quarter even as volume fell 3.4%, the agency reported. The release cites the April price increase.
FedEx already charges more than three times USPS’s 8% in fuel surcharges on ground packages. Parcel fuel surcharges have climbed faster than diesel since 2021 because carriers rewrote their surcharge tables, AFS Logistics found.
FedEx Ground’s fuel surcharge is 29% for the week of Oct 26, according to its published table.
The average ground parcel fuel surcharge rose from 7.75% in the first quarter of 2021, when diesel averaged $2.91 a gallon, to 30% in September, when diesel peaked at $6.53, according to the TD Cowen/AFS Freight Index.
Even at 2021 diesel prices, the surcharge would still be 23.75% today, AFS said.
USPS says it is ready for a peak in which it expects volume to rise about 40% from Oct 1 to Dec 31, according to its holiday release.
Last holiday season USPS delivered in 2.5 days on average, against 2.8 days the year before.
USPS is hiring a little more than 10,000 seasonal workers, down from about 40,000 a few years ago.
Postmaster General David Steiner said USPS has “enough capacity to handle whatever comes our way.”
My notes
USPS will no longer be the parcel carrier without a fuel fee. In March, USPS said it had “steadfastly avoided surcharges.” From January, Ground Advantage and Parcel Select prices will move with diesel every week, the same way FedEx Ground’s do.
Nobody can budget for it yet. USPS hasn’t published the percentages, a surcharge table or the exact start date. AFS found that carriers’ tables drove most of the rise in parcel fuel surcharges since 2021, so the table USPS picks will matter more than the price of diesel.
USPS hasn’t said if the surcharge replaces the 8%. The 8% is set to end on Jan 17. The FAQ dates the surcharge only to January, so USPS has not ruled out a stretch where ground packages pay both.
What’s next
The 8% and the 6% peak increase end on Jan 17, 2027. USPS says new surcharge rates are usually available for testing two weeks before they start.
