A fuel surcharge is a percentage a carrier adds on top of its base transportation charge, reset every week against a published fuel price index instead of holding still between rate filings. For the week of August 24 to 30, 2026, FedEx published 26.75 percent on Ground and Home Delivery and 29.00 percent on domestic Express. UPS runs its own weekly percentage off a published table of diesel and jet fuel price bands rather than posting one flat number, and USPS runs no fuel surcharge on domestic parcels at all.
Every percentage on this page carries the seven-day window it belongs to.
| Carrier | Service group | Rate | Week covered | Index it tracks |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FedEx | Ground, Home Delivery, International Ground | 26.75% | Aug. 24 to 30, 2026 | National U.S. on-highway average diesel price |
| FedEx | Express and other package services, domestic | 29.00% | Aug. 24 to 30, 2026 | U.S. Gulf Coast spot price for kerosene-type jet fuel |
| UPS | Ground and Ground Saver | Published weekly by UPS | Resets Monday | National U.S. average on-highway diesel fuel price |
| UPS | Domestic air | Published weekly by UPS | Resets Monday | U.S. Gulf Coast price for kerosene-type jet fuel |
| USPS | Domestic parcels | No such line exists | n/a | n/a |
FedEx figures: fedex.com weekly fuel surcharge page, read 2026-08-22 — 26.75% set from the diesel price reported Aug. 17, 2026, and 29.00% set from the jet fuel price reported Aug. 14, 2026. UPS figures: the UPS fuel surcharge page at ups.com, read 2026-08-22 — it names the two EIA indexes above, states that changes take effect each Monday, and carried a notice of a domestic surcharge change effective August 10, 2026, but the table's live percentages render inside a script our fetch could not read as page text, so we are not printing a UPS number we did not read. USPS: Notice 123, prices effective July 12, 2026, where the word fuel does not appear once.
Two things stand out. The first is that FedEx runs two different numbers in the same week, 26.75 percent on ground and 29.00 percent on express, because the two ride different commodity indexes reported on different dates. The second is that UPS never states a single number at all — it states a table, and a shipper is expected to match this week's diesel or jet fuel price against a band. Any page that prints one flat UPS percentage without saying which week's fuel price produced it is guessing.
The surcharge multiplies the transportation charge, not the total invoice, and at both carriers it can also attach to certain accessorial charges. That matters at the top of the weight ladder: on a heavy long-zone move the transportation charge is large, so a quarter added to it is a real number, while on a one pound envelope it rounds to pocket change.
The index moves every week and the carriers publish the new figure on a fixed weekday, Monday at UPS. A blog post is accurate for seven days and then quietly is not. That is the whole reason the top of this search result is stale: nobody maintains a weekly table for free.
USPS raises prices by filing a new schedule, not by riding a diesel index. Notice 123 is the entire domestic price list and it carries no fuel line, so a Ground Advantage price holds until the next filed change. It is one of the quiet reasons the Postal Service often wins on light parcels.
Our rates arrive with fuel already applied, so there is nothing for you to add on. As an example of the scale involved, the same 12 x 10 x 6 in box at 5 lb from Newark quoted $13.52 to Atlanta and $19.14 to Seattle on 2026-08-21. Neither figure needs adjusting for the week the index happened to be running.
If you want to watch the effect yourself, quote a box today and quote the same box in three weeks. Ground rates drift a little between filings, and part of that drift is the index. What you should not do is take a percentage off a published list and apply it by hand; you will double-count.
FedEx published 26.75 percent for Ground, Home Delivery and International Ground and 29.00 percent for domestic Express and other package services, both covering August 24 to 30, 2026, per fedex.com read on 2026-08-22. UPS runs the same kind of weekly percentage from its own published diesel and jet fuel price bands; see the next question for how to read it.
UPS does not publish a single number the way FedEx does. It publishes a table that matches a diesel or jet fuel price to a surcharge, with changes effective every Monday, and when we read the page on 2026-08-22 it carried a notice that the domestic surcharges changed effective August 10, 2026. The table's live percentages render inside a script on UPS's own page rather than as page text, so check ups.com directly for this week's exact figure rather than trusting a page that states one flat UPS number with no date attached.
No. USPS Notice 123, the domestic price list effective July 12, 2026, contains no fuel surcharge line for parcels. Postal prices change when a new schedule is filed rather than tracking a weekly diesel or jet fuel index.
It multiplies the transportation charge and, at both UPS and FedEx, can apply to certain accessorial charges as well. It is not a flat fee per package, which is why the same percentage feels invisible on a padded envelope and heavy on a 50 lb long-zone shipment.
No. The figure in our calculator is the whole amount you pay at checkout, fuel included, with SMKlog's charge inside it. You can buy the label as a guest and print it straight away.