A pallet booked to a home is the same pallet, on the same truck, at a different price. Three things change the moment the destination stops being a warehouse: the address triggers its own tariff item, somebody has to call ahead and agree a time, and there is no dock, so the shipment has to come down four feet on hydraulics. Everything below was read from the carriers' own rules tariffs on 2026-07-29.
A driveway is not a facility, and the tariff language is written for facilities. Reading it before you book is what keeps the invoice recognisable.
The word is doing more work than it looks. Each carrier writes its own definition, they do not agree, and one of them reaches straight into home businesses that consider themselves commercial.
| Carrier and item | Who the tariff calls residential | The condition worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| FedEx Freight, item 750-2 | A home or private residence, including locations where a business is operated from a home, and any shipment where the shipper has designated the address as a residence | Delivery to a residence is made to the front door, the back door, or inside the garage |
| Old Dominion, item 753-1 | A private residence, apartment, boat slip, estate or farm, with the term applied to the entire premises | Consigning the bill of lading to such an address counts by itself as asking for the service |
| R+L Carriers, item 753-2 | Private residences, apartments, condominiums, estates and farms, minus any part of the premises where merchandise or services are sold to the walk-in public in normal business hours | Floors above or below the level a truck can reach are served only where a lift exists and the labour to run it costs the carrier nothing |
Two consequences fall straight out of that table. If you sell from a spare room, FedEx Freight bills you as a residence and R+L probably does not, because R+L's exception hangs on whether the public walks in. And if you write a home address on the bill of lading at all, Old Dominion treats the paperwork as the request, so there is no version of this where you quietly avoid the item by not ticking a box.
People budget for one residential line and get two. The tariffs are explicit that the charge is per event, not per shipment.
Old Dominion's item 753-1 says the same thing in its own words, and adds that the charge is collected from the shipper on prepaid shipments and from the consignee on collect ones. Sell a workbench from your garage to somebody else's garage and the address item is on the bill twice before a single mile is priced. That is the single most common surprise on a first freight invoice, and it is not an error.
Freight does not turn up the way a parcel does. Somebody phones, a window is agreed, and an adult has to be standing there when the trailer arrives.
Residential service buys a delivery to the property, not a delivery into the house. FedEx Freight is the most specific about the destination, and even its wording stops at a doorway.
The general pickup and delivery item behind it draws the line even harder. Unloading is the carrier's job, but that item excludes the special equipment used in hoisting, lowering, handling or placing freight into position, and says such equipment is to be furnished and operated by the consignor or consignee — hand trucks, four-wheel carts and non-riding pallet jacks excepted. In a driveway that reads as one sentence: the driver gets it to the ground, and the rest is you.
Taking the shipment further than that is inside delivery, a separate item with its own rate, and taking it to a specific room with the wrapping removed is the territory of the home delivery products covered on our white glove page. Neither is included because the address is residential.
A house has no dock and almost never has a forklift, so the pallet has to come down mechanically. That makes the liftgate the second accessorial on nearly every residential bill.
It is worth booking deliberately rather than discovering on the day. Carriers price the platform whether or not you asked for it if their staff had to use another means to get the freight down, and they are not obliged to supply it where a suitable vehicle and operator are not available. The published rates, the minimums that a light pallet always pays, and the weight and size limits of the platform itself are all set out on our liftgate cost page.
Where a home also sits behind a gate, on a farm track or inside a private community, a second address item can stack on top: the location charge described on our limited access page. Some carriers bill residential and limited access under one item and some keep them apart, which decides whether a rural delivery is charged once or twice.
Residential delivery assumes the trailer can reach the property. Where it cannot, the tariff has already told you what happens, and it is not a negotiation with the driver.
FedEx Freight's item 760 lists shipments requiring delivery to a home or private residence among the exclusions from its service-refund programme, alongside limited-access locations and anything needing a liftgate. A late residential pallet is simply late.
Its volume services programme, item 759, lists residential pickup or delivery among the services not available under that pricing, except on shipments staying within one service centre. A tempting large-shipment quote can exclude the one thing you need.
Both are the kind of clause nobody reads until the shipment is already booked. Neither is hidden: they sit in the same tariff as the charge itself, on fedex.com, read 2026-07-29.
There is exactly one exemption written into these items, and it is worth knowing before you decide the address is fixed.
Collect it yourself and the residential item comes off. That trade only works if three things line up: a vehicle the pallet fits in, somebody at the terminal to put it there with a forklift, and a free morning inside the day after the call. For a single skid within driving distance of a service centre it is often the cheapest hour anyone spends on the shipment. For a household appliance in a rural county it is theory.
Price a pallet to a home address Or check whether it still fits a parcel
Whatever the tariff says, and the tariffs are broader than most people expect. FedEx Freight reaches a business run out of a home. Old Dominion names apartments, boat slips, estates and farms. R+L applies it to the whole premises unless part of it sells to the walk-in public during business hours.
No. Unloading is included, but the tariff excludes the equipment used to hoist, lower or place freight into position, and it excludes assembling, unpacking and debris removal. Moving the pallet past the truck is inside delivery, which is a separate item with its own charge.
Yes, and on a residential bill you are already paying for it. Old Dominion gives notice of arrival and agrees a delivery arrangement before the first attempt. FedEx Freight folds that first call into the residential item, so it is not billed a second time as notification.
One clean way: collect the shipment yourself. Old Dominion's item exempts a shipment picked up at its destination terminal no later than the first business day after notice of arrival. You need a vehicle that fits the pallet and someone at the terminal to load it.
Through our freight review, where a person prices it. Residential freight carries accessorials that depend on the street, the equipment and the appointment, and a screen that guesses at those produces a number the invoice later corrects.