What is an accessorial charge?
Any charge for something asked of the driver or the terminal beyond dock-to-dock transport. Each one is a numbered item in the carrier rules tariff, with a written trigger and a published way of calculating it.
Accessorial charges
Every accessorial that can land on an LTL invoice
The gap between a freight quote and a freight invoice is almost always accessorials: services the carrier performed because of the addresses, the equipment or the timing, each priced by a rule filed long before your shipment existed. Here they are in one place, with the item number, the trigger, the shape of the charge, and whether you can remove it by changing something at your end.
One rules tariff, item by itemTriggers namedRead 2026-07-29
The invoice is longer than the quote
Most of the difference is decided by the delivery address, not by the freight.
An accessorial is a rule somebody filed, with a number on it
Nothing lands on an LTL invoice without a tariff item behind it. Every charge below has one, which means every charge can be looked up, argued with a citation, and in many cases avoided by changing something you control. The quote you were given is not a promise: the carrier's own rule on estimates says charges quoted orally or in writing are furnished as a convenience, represent an approximation, and bind neither side, with the real bill assessed from the tariff in force on the ship date as applied to the services actually performed. That is item 892 of the R+L Carriers Rules Tariff, read 2026-07-29.
Amounts are deliberately absent from the table. Each carrier files its own, they move on their own schedule, and a figure copied from somewhere else is worse than no figure at all. What does not move much is the trigger and the shape of the charge, and those are what let you predict which ones are coming.
| Charge and item | What sets it off | How it is billed | Designed out by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Residential pickup or delivery Item 753-2 | An address that is a house, apartment, condominium, estate or farm, whoever lives there | Per cwt, with a minimum and a maximum per shipment | Shipping to a commercial address or collecting at the terminal |
| Limited access Item 753-1 | Camps, churches, construction sites, convents, country clubs, golf courses, marinas, military bases, mini-storage, nursing homes, prisons, schools and yacht clubs | Per cwt, with a minimum and a maximum per shipment | A different consignee address, when one exists |
| Lift gate Item 520 | No dock at one end, so the freight has to come down on the truck | Per cwt, with a minimum and a maximum, doubled where a skid is broken down | Delivering to a dock, or splitting skids below the tailgate weight limit |
| Inside pickup or delivery Item 566 | Freight handled at a position that is not immediately adjacent to the vehicle | Per cwt, with a minimum and a maximum | Meeting the driver at the tail of the trailer and taking it from there |
| Notification before delivery Item 647 | Any request that the consignee be called or booked in before the truck comes | Flat per shipment, with more added where the agreed window is under four hours | Publishing real receiving hours instead of asking for an appointment |
| Redelivery Item 830 | A first attempt that failed through no fault of the carrier | The original charges again, with a minimum and the fuel surcharge on top | A named contact who answers the phone on delivery day |
| After-hours service Item 752 | Pickup or delivery requested after 5:00 PM or before 9:00 AM, Monday to Friday | Per hour, with a minimum, and no discount applied | Booking inside the working day |
| Weekend or holiday service Item 756 | Pickup or delivery requested on a Saturday, Sunday or holiday | Per person per hour, with a per-person daily minimum | Moving the date, since the carrier is not obliged to work those days anyway |
| Detention Items 500, 501, 502, 504 | The vehicle held past the free time allowance at either end | Per fifteen minutes with power, per day for a trailer left behind | Having labor, a forklift and a signature ready before the truck arrives |
| Storage Item 910 | Freight the carrier cannot move on because of the shipper, the consignee or customs | Per day, starting at 7:00 AM the day after the freight is received or notice of arrival is given | Clearing the freight the day it is offered |
| Reconsignment Item 820 | Changing the consignee name or the place of delivery after tender, or pulling the shipment back at origin | Flat, plus whatever rerouting costs | Getting the bill of lading right the first time |
| Over-dimension freight Item 670 | Any article 96 inches or longer in length or width, with further steps at 144, 192, 240 and 288 inches | Flat per shipment, by band, plus a fee where an inspection is what found it | Measuring the longest piece and declaring it on the bill of lading |
| Weight correction Item 992 | A tendered weight found to be at least 50 lb under the real one | Rerated charges plus a flat reweigh fee, not subject to discount | Weighing the loaded pallet, pallet included, before it leaves |
| Inspection and reclassification Item 991 | The carrier checking that the commodity description on the bill of lading is what is actually on the pallet | Flat per shipment, plus the rerated freight and every charge that hangs off it | Describing the commodity properly and never writing freight of all kinds |
| Cubic capacity minimum Item 610 | An average density under 6 lb per cubic foot occupying 750 cubic feet or more of trailer | Rerated on a constructed weight at class 125, whatever your pricing agreement says | Packing tighter, or accepting that light bulky freight buys floor space |
| Packing non-compliance Item 687 | Packaging that fails the classification requirement, discovered after the freight was accepted | Two hundred percent of the charge at the highest class shown on the same shipping form | Reading the packing item for your commodity before you build the pallet |
| Debris removal Item 688 | Asking the driver to take away packaging, pallets or trash | Per fifteen minutes, and the carrier is never obliged to do it | Handling your own packaging at the receiving end |
| Sorting and segregating Item 882 | Freight loaded by size, brand or flavor instead of by the lot going to each consignee | Per cwt, with a minimum per shipment sorted | Building each pallet for one consignee |
| Stop-off Item 900 | A truckload stopped en route for partial loading or partial unloading, but not both | Per stop, with a separate transfer charge for moving the vehicle between sites on the same premises | Consolidating to one pickup and one delivery |
| Vehicle furnished but not used Item 985 | A truck dispatched for a truckload or exclusive-use booking that never loads | Per day or part day, per vehicle, until the carrier is told to stand down | Canceling as soon as you know, since the clock stops on notification |
| Fuel surcharge Item 563 | Every shipment, always | A percentage of the net charges, read off the national index announced each Monday and applied the following Wednesday | Nothing. It is arithmetic, not a service |
| Tolls Item 957 | A pickup or delivery site reachable only over a toll road or bridge | The toll, passed through | Nothing, short of moving the building |
The ones an address changes
Residential and limited access are the two most expensive words on a bill of lading, and both are decided entirely by where the freight is going. A carrier does not care who owns the building, only what the driver will find. The residential rule reaches the whole premises where a dwelling stands, with one carve-out: the part of the property where merchandise or services are sold to walk-in customers during normal business hours is not treated as residential. A workshop behind a house is residential. A shop at the front of the same house, open to the public, is not.
Limited access is a published list rather than a judgment call, and the list is longer than most shippers expect. Schools, churches, construction sites, marinas, nursing homes, prisons, mini-storage yards and military bases all sit on it. If the consignee address appears on that list and there is any alternative, the alternative is usually cheaper than everything else you could negotiate on the same shipment.
Equipment follows the address. A site with no dock needs the freight brought down on the truck, and a site with no forklift indoors often needs it carried further still. The lift gate rule also caps what the tailgate will take: a skid over the published tailgate weight limit gets broken down and the charge doubled, so two smaller skids can beat one heavy one on the invoice as well as on the driver's back.
The ones a calendar changes
Appointments feel like control and bill like a service. Asking for the consignee to be notified before delivery is a flat item on its own, and squeezing the agreed window below four hours adds more on top. A receiving bay with honest published hours costs nothing; a two-hour window costs twice.
Anything outside the normal working day is priced by the hour with a hefty minimum, and weekend or holiday work is priced per person per day whether the job takes ten minutes or six hours. Carriers are careful to say they are under no obligation to work those days at all, which is worth remembering before a bill of lading promises a Saturday to a customer.
Failed deliveries are the cruelest of the calendar charges, because the second attempt bills like the first one and the storage clock starts at seven in the morning on the day after notice of arrival. A shipment that nobody was ready for can therefore collect redelivery and storage on the same invoice, both of which were avoidable with one phone call answered.
The ones nobody talks their way out of
Fuel is a percentage of the net charges, driven by an index published weekly, so it rides on top of everything else including the accessorials. Tolls are passed through where the site cannot be reached any other way. Neither is negotiable and neither should be treated as a surprise.
The corrections are a different animal, because they are avoidable in principle and almost never in practice. A reweigh that finds the pallet at least 50 lb heavier than declared reprices the shipment and adds a flat fee. An inspection that finds the commodity is not what the bill of lading said reprices the class and adds another. Light, bulky freight that fills a large block of trailer at low density gets rebuilt on a constructed weight at a fixed class regardless of what your pricing agreement says. All three are the carrier correcting your paperwork, and all three are cheaper to prevent with a scale, a tape measure and an accurate commodity description than to appeal afterwards.
Accessorial charges: common questions
Why did charges appear that were not on my quote?
Because a quote is an estimate of published tariff charges applied to the facts the carrier was given. The carrier rule on estimates says so in as many words: it binds neither side, and the bill is assessed from the tariff in force on the ship date against the services actually performed.
Which accessorials can I actually avoid?
The ones decided by an address or a calendar. Residential and limited access delivery, lift gate, inside delivery, appointments, after-hours and weekend service, redelivery and storage are all consequences of where and when, not of what you are shipping.
Is a home business charged as a residential delivery?
Usually yes. The rule reaches the whole premises on which a dwelling stands, with one exception: the part of the property where merchandise or services are sold to walk-in customers during normal business hours is not treated as residential.
What makes a lift gate charge double?
A skid heavier than the published tailgate limit. The carrier breaks it down to get it off the truck, and the tariff doubles the lift gate charge when it does. Two lighter skids can bill better than one heavy one.