UPS and FedEx 2027 Rate Increases: What Amazon Sellers Should Do

UPS will raise its published Daily Rates for UPS Ground, UPS Air and International services by an average net 5.9% on Dec. 21, 2026. UPS also says the effect on your costs “will vary according to your shipping characteristics and the terms of your UPS agreement.” Daily Rates are the published list prices that apply when you have a scheduled pickup or a daily-rate contract.

UPS announced several other changes for the same date:

The UPS Small Business Rates page lists the 4.5% increase and the 5% fuel surcharge. UPS has also posted 2027 preview rates by service, weight and zone on its rates page, along with a preview of changes to surcharges and other charges. UPS says the final 2027 Rate and Service Guide will be available on Dec. 21, 2026.

FedEx will raise standard list rates for U.S., U.S. export and U.S. import package services by an average of 5.9% on Jan. 4, 2027. The FedEx rate changes page also lists rate increases for Ground Economy and Ground Multiweight, and higher minimum rates for U.S. and international package services. FedEx has published its 2027 standard list rates, its 2027 surcharge and fee changes and its new ZIP code lists.

Most U.S. sellers will see the Jan. 4 rate and ZIP list changes first. The paper fees mostly matter if you ship internationally or still print manual airbills.

The 5.9% figure is an average of list rates, so your own increase can land above or below it. Carriers raise each service, weight and zone by a different amount, and surcharges rise on their own schedule. The carriers’ own tables show several common charges rising faster than 5.9%:

The UPS figures come from the UPS preview of surcharge changes, and the FedEx figures come from FedEx’s 2027 surcharge and fee changes. Most online orders go to homes, so the residential charge applies to many of your labels. Treat 5.9% as a starting point and budget for a range.

You will see these changes if you pay UPS or FedEx directly, or buy their labels through a platform that passes the carrier’s rates through. That covers FBM orders, multichannel orders on other marketplaces, returns you ship, and inbound shipments to Amazon that you send on your own account. Sellers who buy labels with their own carrier accounts can learn how to link carrier accounts to Amazon Buy Shipping.

Shipments that Amazon fulfills to customers are priced under Amazon’s own fee schedule, so these carrier changes do not show up on your carrier invoice for those orders. I have not seen Amazon announce any fee change tied to these carrier increases.

Your contract matters. UPS’s rates page says the effect depends on the terms of your agreement. The UPS Tariff/Terms and Conditions say charges are those in effect at the time of shipping. UPS’s sample customer agreement applies its discount as a percentage off the Daily Rates in effect at the time of shipping, and it covers base transportation rates only, not surcharges. So unless your agreement says otherwise, a package you ship on or after Dec. 21 is priced on the 2027 rates, whenever your agreement started. Check whether your discounts are percentages or fixed dollar amounts. A fixed dollar discount does not grow when prices rise, and a percentage discount does.

If you also ship by USPS, your labels already cost more. The holiday price change and the April increase both run until Jan. 17, 2027.

UPS will bill Additional Handling packages at a minimum of 50 lb instead of 40 lb starting Dec. 21, 2026. Additional Handling is a surcharge for packages that are heavy, long, oddly shaped or packed in a way UPS treats as non-standard.

A 30 lb package that triggers Additional Handling is billed as 40 lb today. From Dec. 21 it is billed as 50 lb. That is 25% more billable weight before the 5.9% rate increase applies. The UPS Tariff says an Additional Handling package is rated on the greater of its dimensional weight or actual weight, subject to a minimum in the UPS Rates. The new minimum therefore changes a package only when both its actual weight and its dimensional weight are under 50 lb, so packages at 50 lb or more are unchanged.

Long, light cartons take the biggest hit, so check your largest FBM and inbound boxes first.

Start with your own invoices, then work through these steps before Dec. 21.

1. Rerun your landed-cost and FBM margin models. Use a range such as 5.9% to 7%, not one number. Replace the range with real figures from the UPS and FedEx rate tables.
2. Check your ZIP codes. Compare your warehouse, prep center and top customer ZIP codes against the new area surcharge and zone lists on the UPS and FedEx sites.
3. Find packages near the Additional Handling line. Flag any UPS box that triggers Additional Handling today and weighs under 50 lb. Its billed weight will rise.
4. Review your carrier contract. Look at your discount type, your surcharge terms and the date your agreement moves to the 2027 tariff.
5. Compare options. Rate your most common package sizes with each carrier you can use, and price listings on the cheapest total cost, not only the headline rate.

Here is a simple illustration of why a range helps. The numbers are examples, not carrier quotes.

Also review your past invoices for post-delivery charges, because higher surcharges make each adjustment more costly. If higher shipping costs make you rethink FBM, this comparison of FBA, FBM and Seller Fulfilled Prime shows how each method stacks up on cost.

A few details were still unpublished as of Nov. 6, 2026:

• UPS has not published the amount of its surge fee, and I could not find its list of origin ZIP codes. The UPS rates page says details will be available in early November.
• UPS has posted preview rates, but its final 2027 Rate and Service Guide is due Dec. 21, 2026.
• FedEx has not yet released the list of countries for its international Residential Delivery Charge.

I will not guess at these numbers. Check the UPS and FedEx pages above for updates as they appear.