The third accessorial that catches new freight shippers is unlike the other two. It is not about equipment and not about labour. It is a charge for the kind of place your freight is going, applied because the carrier expects to wait at a gate, sign in at a desk, or find nobody on a site. The lists are published, they differ between carriers, and reading yours before you promise a delivery date is fifteen minutes well spent.
The carrier is pricing the wait, not the unloading.
Each carrier publishes its own list, and none of the lists match. These are the categories named in four tariffs read on 2026-07-28, stated in our own words.
| Carrier | Categories the tariff names |
|---|---|
| FedEx Freight, item 750-8 | Mini storage units, churches and places of worship, schools, commercial premises not open to the walk-in public during normal business hours, building sites, fairs and carnivals, prisons and jails, military bases, mine sites, sites requiring a security inspection or an escort to reach the loading area, wind farms and airports |
| R+L Carriers, item 753-1 | Camps, churches, building sites, convents, country clubs, golf courses, marinas, military bases, mini storage warehouses, nursing homes, prisons, rectories, schools, yacht clubs and other such locations |
| Old Dominion, items 753-1 to 753-4 | Residences, schools, building sites and military facilities in one item; airports, self storage warehouses and mines, quarries, natural gas and oil fields priced under separate items |
| XPO, items 201, 202 and 224 | Residential and limited access under one item; construction and utility sites under another; government sites, airports, mines, natural gas and oil fields under a third |
Two patterns are worth noticing. First, the categories are about access rather than about business type: a shop that does not open to the public during the day is on the FedEx Freight list even though it is plainly commercial. Second, some carriers roll residential into the same item and some keep it apart, which changes not just the price but whether you can be billed twice for one delivery.
Two of these carriers charge a flat amount per shipment and three charge per hundred pounds against a floor. For a light pallet the flat charge can be dearer; for a heavy one it is usually a bargain.
| Carrier and item | Structure | Published charge |
|---|---|---|
| Estes, item 751-10 | Flat per shipment | $85.00 |
| FedEx Freight, item 750-8 | Flat per shipment | $229.00 |
| Old Dominion, items 753-1 to 753-4 | Per cwt with floor and ceiling | $7.20 per cwt, minimum $115.00, maximum $580.00 |
| R+L Carriers, item 753-1 | Per cwt with floor and ceiling | $15.00 per cwt, minimum $225.00, maximum $1,530.00 |
| XPO, item 224 | Per cwt with floor and ceiling, shared with residential | $15.25 per cwt, minimum $170.50, maximum $839.00 |
| XPO, item 201 | Flat per shipment, construction and utility sites | $170.50 |
| XPO, item 202 | Flat per shipment, government sites, airports, mines and oil fields | $209.00 |
| Old Dominion, item 753-5 | Flat per shipment, airport | $125.00 |
| Old Dominion, item 756 | Per cwt, self storage warehouses | $5.00 per cwt, minimum $70.00 |
| Old Dominion, item 752 | Flat per shipment, mines, quarries, natural gas or oil fields | $160.00 |
A 400 lb pallet to a school costs $85.00 at one carrier and $229.00 at another for identical work. Nothing about the shipment explains the difference; it is purely which tariff you are shipping under. If you have a choice of carrier and a difficult destination, this is where to look first.
Item 750-2 prices a delivery to a home or private residence at $243.00 per shipment, and item 750-8 prices a limited access location at $229.00. Nothing in either item says the other is excluded, and item 750-2 says its charge applies in addition to all other lawful charges.
XPO prices residential and limited access pickup or delivery together in item 224 at $15.25 per cwt with a $170.50 minimum and an $839.00 maximum. Building sites and government sites then sit in their own items at $170.50 and $209.00 per shipment.
FedEx Freight defines the residential charge as applying to a home or private residence including locations where a business is operated from a home, and to any shipment where the shipper has designated the address as a residence. R+L excludes only the part of a property where commercial activity serving walk-in customers takes place.
FedEx Freight prices notification before delivery at $65.00 in item 750-3, but states it does not apply to the initial notification for shipments moving to a residence or a limited access location. Those get one call in the price of the address charge.
Not against a general article, and not against a different carrier’s list. The four lists above differ enough that a golf club is named by one carrier and not by another. The tariff is published, so read the one you are shipping under.
Changing a destination in transit is its own charge. Old Dominion publishes a $75.00 administrative fee for reconsignment plus recalculated transport charges, and other carriers price it similarly. Deciding the address correctly at booking is free.
A delivery to a warehouse or shop that opens to the public in normal hours avoids the charge entirely. For a small seller shipping to a buyer at a school or a building site, asking whether the freight can go to their employer’s main address is often the cheapest question of the day.
A terminal collection removes the address from the equation. Estes publishes $42.75 for a pickup from the carrier’s dock, which is under half its own limited access charge and a fraction of some others.
The charges on this page are decided by an address you already know at the moment you take the order. Send us the destination with the shipment details and we will tell you which of them are coming, so the price you give your customer is the price you end up paying.
A delivery to a location the carrier has listed as harder to reach or to enter, such as a school, a place of worship, a building site, a mini storage unit, a military base or an airport. The charge is set by the address type rather than by what happens on arrival.
Estes publishes a flat $85.00 per shipment and FedEx Freight a flat $229.00. Old Dominion charges $7.20 per cwt with a $115.00 minimum and a $580.00 maximum, R+L $15.00 per cwt with a $225.00 minimum, and XPO $15.25 per cwt with a $170.50 minimum under an item it shares with residential deliveries.
At some carriers, yes. FedEx Freight prices them in two separate items, $243.00 for a residence and $229.00 for a limited access location, and states that the residential charge applies in addition to all other lawful charges. XPO instead prices both under one item.
FedEx Freight says yes: its residential item covers locations where a business is operated from a home, and any shipment where the shipper has designated the address as a residence. R+L excludes only the portion of a property where merchandise or services are sold to walk-in customers during normal business hours.