Four carriers added a demand surcharge for the 2026–27 peak season, and the United States Postal Service (USPS) raised its published rates instead. Charges on large and bulky packages start in late September, a month before the per-package fees on residential deliveries. The USPS increase grew the furthest year over year and hit long-zone parcels hardest, while the volume tier at UPS and FedEx remains the highest cost in most peak budgets.
UPS, FedEx, OnTrac, Amazon Shipping, and USPS have all published their 2026–27 peak schedules. The first charges start on September 26. Most of the changes are small on a single package and large across a season. Here is what each carrier did.
Four of the five carriers raised peak pricing the same way. UPS, FedEx, OnTrac, and Amazon Shipping each use a demand surcharge, a separate per-package amount that appears on its own invoice line during a defined window. USPS raised the published rates on Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage, Priority Mail Express, and Parcel Select instead.
That difference changes what you can see. A surcharge appears as its own line, so you can audit it, catch billing errors against it, and total it at the end of the season. The USPS increase is inside the price of the label from October 4 through January 17, and nothing on the invoice marks it as seasonal. You still see the overage in your postage total. With no line item behind it, a seasonal price increase reads like a change in volume or product mix, and reconciling it takes rate-level data rather than an invoice review.
The multi-carrier peak comparison report puts all five schedules side by side, and the individual breakdowns for UPS, FedEx, Amazon Shipping, and USPS carry the full rate detail behind each one.
Peak charges arrive in two waves, and the first wave only touches large and bulky packages. OnTrac begins charging for additional handling and oversize on September 26, UPS on September 27, and FedEx on September 28. The per-package fees on residential deliveries do not begin until October 25 at UPS and Amazon Shipping, and October 26 at FedEx. The USPS rate increase takes effect October 4.
If you ship large or heavy items, you pay peak pricing for a full month before a business shipping small parcels pays its first peak charge.
UPS, FedEx, and Amazon Shipping each split their window into three periods. A shoulder period runs from the start date through November 21, the peak rate applies November 22 through December 26, and a second shoulder period runs December 27 through the end of the season in mid-January. The rate comes back down for those final weeks. OnTrac runs the longest window in the market at 112 days and holds a single $1 rate across all of it.
UPS, FedEx, and Amazon Shipping all raised residential ground from $0.40 to $0.50 in the shoulder weeks, a 25% increase at each of the three. During the peak weeks of November 22 through December 26, they separate. FedEx charges $0.80, and UPS and Amazon Shipping charge $0.75.
Deferred and express services moved further. FedEx Ground Economy goes from $2.55 in the shoulder weeks to $4.05 at peak, against $0.75 for UPS Ground Saver, the service it competes with most directly. FedEx also split Express into two schedules this year. Overnight peaks at $2.55 and 2Day with Express Saver peaks at $2.35, where a single rate covered both last season. UPS charges $2.50 on Next Day Air and on every other air service.
Additional handling at peak reaches $11.90 at UPS and Amazon Shipping, an increase of 10.2% at both. FedEx charges $11.85, up 8.7%. OnTrac held at $11 for a second consecutive year, after putting a base rate increase through in January.
Large package charges follow the same order. UPS and Amazon Shipping reach $117.50, up 9.8%. FedEx reaches $117.25, up 8.1%. OnTrac reaches $110, up 4.8%. At the top of the schedule, the order flips, with FedEx and OnTrac charging $595 on packages over maximum limits, compared with $590 at UPS and Amazon Shipping.
Amazon Shipping matches UPS on every one of these to the penny. A $0.50 difference on large packages remained between them last year.
USPS raised its seasonal amounts further than the other four carriers raised their fees. The increase itself grew by roughly 40% year over year across nearly every weight and zone cell. USPS Ground Advantage parcels of 0 to 3 pounds going to Zones 5 through 9 rose from $0.35 to $0.55, a jump of 57.1% and the largest single increase in any of the five schedules.
Distance drives that grid harder than weight does. Long-zone parcels absorb the steepest increase at every weight band, and the lightest, most common ecommerce package going a long distance took the biggest jump of all.
Two things change what the increase costs you. The seasonal amount is on top of changes USPS made earlier this year, including the elimination of ounce-based pricing for packages under one pound. The total change from last season runs higher than the seasonal figure alone. The increase also remains subject to favorable review by the Postal Regulatory Commission, which means the published numbers can still change before October 4.
The cost most peak budgets miss is the volume tier at UPS and FedEx. It applies only once you bill more than 20,000 residential packages in a week. Both carriers then divide that week's volume by your own June weekly average. The resulting ratio selects a tier rate, and that rate replaces the standard demand surcharge on every qualifying package that week. It applies outside your contracted caps.
June is one of the quietest months on most retail calendars. A business with flat revenue, shipping the same curve it shipped last year, still reaches a high tier. Stay at or below 105% of your June average, and you pay the standard demand surcharge. Cross that line in any week, and the tier rate takes over. On ground shipping, the tiers open at $1.75 and climb to $8, and a retailer running more than four times its June volume in December pays that top rate on every qualifying package that week.
OnTrac, Amazon Shipping, and USPS have no equivalent mechanism.
Before the season starts, confirm the dimensional and cubic thresholds written into your current carrier agreements. Those thresholds decide which of your packages pick up additional handling, and they can change between contract years. A package that avoided the charge last season can trigger it this season with nothing about the box having changed.
Everything else that matters comes out of your billing data rather than a published schedule: whether you clear 20,000 packages in any week, which weeks exceed 105% of your June average, what each tier does to your effective cost per package, and how much of the increase your current agreements already absorb.
TransImpact answers those questions from your own invoices and carrier agreements, identifies which weeks put you on a tier schedule, and shows you what the season costs across every carrier in your mix. Request a call to get started.
The first charges start September 26 on additional handling and oversize at OnTrac, September 27 at UPS, and September 28 at FedEx. Per-package residential fees start October 25 at UPS and Amazon Shipping, and October 26 at FedEx. The USPS rate increase starts October 4. Most schedules end between January 15 and January 17, 2027.
No. The USPS increase applies at the same amount whether you ship 500 parcels a week or 100,000, because volume thresholds and calculations against a baseline do not exist. UPS and FedEx both run a volume tier, and OnTrac and Amazon Shipping have no volume mechanism at all.
The volume tier rates trigger when your weekly residential ground and air volume exceeds 20,000 packages, and that same week exceeds 105% of your June weekly average. UPS measures June as May 31 through June 27 and assesses weekly with no lag. FedEx measures June 1 through June 28 and applies the result two weeks after the week it measured.
The UPS and FedEx per-package demand fees apply to residential ground and air only. Amazon Shipping applies its per-package fee to every package, commercial included. Additional handling and oversize charges apply to commercial packages at all four carriers, which makes package shape the main exposure for business-to-business volume.