Every January, FedEx and UPS raise their published rates as a “General Rate Increase,” or GRI. For 2026, both carriers have set their GRI at 5.9%. But if you’re plugging that number into your budget, you’re already behind.
That 5.9% figure only applies to base transportation rates, and for most shippers, base rates are a mere shrinking slice of the invoice.
Surcharges, which move independently of the GRI, are climbing. And today, they make up a large share of your invoice.
This guide covers what the GRI actually covers and how it flows through to a shipper’s total shipping spend. Finally, it includes how a shipper can respond to the GRI before it impacts the budget, instead of after.
What Is a General Rate Increase (GRI)?
A General Rate Increase is the annual adjustment FedEx and UPS make to their published (list)rates for ground, air, and international parcel services. It’s the carriers’ way of resetting the sticker price on shipping before applying any negotiated discounts.
For 2026, FedEx announced a 5.9% average GRI effective January 5, 2026, and UPS matched it with a 5.9% average GRI effective December 22, 2025. This has turned out to be one of the earliest GRI start dates in recent memory, perfectly positioned to capture higher rates through the final stretch of peak holiday shipping season.
Here are a few things to keep in mind about how GRIs actually work:
- The published percentage is an average across all services, weights, and zones. Your actual increase depends on your specific shipment profile.
- GRIs apply directly to non-contract (list) rates. If you ship under a negotiated contract, your rate increase is technically governed by your contract’s discount terms, but those terms are usually built as a percentage off the list rate. This means that when the list rate rises, your invoice rises too, even if your discount percentage hasn’t changed.
- A GRI is separate from fuel surcharges, which adjust on their own schedule based on carrier fuel index tables. It’s also separate from peak or demand surcharges, which are seasonal.
Who Announces GRIs, and When Do They Announce Them?
FedEx and UPS each announce their GRI independently, usually in the fall for the following January.
FedEx announced its 2026 GRI in mid-September 2025; UPS followed with its own 5.9% announcement in late October 2025.
The two carriers have mirrored each other’s headline percentage for several years running. This is one reason shippers sometimes treat the number as fixed.
It isn’t. It’s just consistent.
| Year | FedEx GRI | UPS GRI | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023 | 6.9% | 6.9% | Largest single-year increase in FedEx history at the time |
| 2024 | 5.9% | 5.9% | Rates settled back to the more typical 4.9%–5.9% range |
| 2025 | 5.9% | 5.9% | Second consecutive year at 5.9% |
| 2026 | 5.9% | 5.9% | Third consecutive year at 5.9%; UPS effective date moved earlier |
How Does A GRI Affect Pricing and Shipping Costs?
This is where the headline number and your actual invoice start to diverge. The GRI resets base transportation rates. Surcharges are priced and adjusted separately. These can include residential delivery, delivery area, additional handling, oversize, and fuel. In most recent years, these have moved up faster than the GRI itself.
It compounds for a structural reason: fuel surcharges apply to more than just the base transportation charge. They also apply on top of residential surcharges and delivery area surcharges, as well as additional handling fees.
As carriers expand the list of charges that fuel gets calculated against, the fuel surcharge line grows even when the fuel prices are flat. Every new surcharge added to that calculation base pulls more of your invoice into the fuel multiplier.
For 2026, several accessorial charges are rising well past the 5.9% average:
| Charge | 2026 Change | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| Residential Delivery Surcharge | ~8% | Applies to most DTC and ecommerce shipments by default |
| Delivery Area Surcharge (DAS) | ~6% | Determined by ZIP code, stacks with residential surcharge |
| Remote DAS | ~8% | Can push per-package fees close to $17 |
| Adult Signature Required | ~15.6% | Common on age-restricted or high-value shipments |
| Zone 6–8, 50+ lb. Ground | up to 7.2% | Well above the 5.9% headline for heavier, longer-zone freight |
Here’s your practical takeaway from this table: your shipment mix determines your real increase far more than the GRI headline does.
A business shipping mostly light, commercial, short-zone packages might land close to 5.9%.
A business shipping heavier residential packages to remote zones, or anything requiring a signature, should budget closer to 8-12%.
When Does a Shipping GRI Typically Take Effect, and How Long Does It Last?
Historically, GRIs took effect in the first half of January and held for the full calendar year until the next announcement. But that pattern is changing. FedEx alone has logged dozens of pricing changes since its 2026 GRI took effect in January:
- New demand surcharges
- Fuel table adjustments
- Accessorial fees
All of these have rolled out through the spring and summer.
In practice, shippers can treat the January GRI as the floor for the year, not the ceiling. It also helps to build a quarterly review into your shipping budget rather than a once-a-year check-in. This is because mid-year surcharges and fee changes can add up to more than the original GRI by December.
How Does a GRI Affect Pending Shipments?
New rates apply based on ship date, not order or contract renewal date. Once a GRI’s effective date passes, carrier billing systems apply the new rate table to every shipment tendered on or after that date. This is regardless of when the customer placed the order or when your team quoted the shipping cost.
Two practical implications worth planning around:
- If you’re quoting shipping costs to customers in the weeks leading up to a GRI effective date, be sure to confirm whether your carrier rate feed has already been updated, or you’ll risk underquoting your own margin.
- The first 60–90 days after a GRI takes effect are when billing errors are most common. This is because new surcharge tiers and updated ZIP code lists get misapplied. This window is the highest-value time to audit invoices line by line.
How Does a GRI Differ From a Surcharge Increase? Do GRIs Affect Accessorial Fees?
A GRI and a surcharge increase are two different mechanisms, and carriers manage them on two different timelines:
| General Rate Increase | Surcharge / Accessorial Increase | |
|---|---|---|
| What it covers | Base transportation rates | Residential, DAS, fuel, additional handling, oversize, and other fees |
| When it’s announced | Once a year, typically in the fall for January | Throughout the year, on rolling schedules |
| Typical size | Published average (5.9% in 2026) | Often 2x the GRI or higher for specific fees |
| Where it shows up | The base rate line on your invoice | Individual surcharge lines, compounding with fuel |
So… yes. GRIs and surcharge increases move independently, but they’re not unrelated. Carriers will often raise accessorial fees on the same effective date as the GRI, then continue adjusting them separately throughout the year.
If you’re only modeling the GRI percentage against your total spend, you’re modeling the smaller half of the increase.
Forecasting the Impact of a GRI on Your Shipping Budget
A single blended percentage applied to last year’s shipping spend will understate your real cost increase.
A more accurate forecast looks like this:
- Pull 12 months of invoices broken out by base rate versus each surcharge type, not just total spend. You need to know what share of your bill is base rate before you can model the GRI’s real impact.
- Apply the published GRI to your base rate, then apply the actual surcharge-specific increases (residential, DAS, oversize, signature, etc.) to those line items separately, using your own historical volume in each category.
- Segment by service level, weight, and zone. A company shipping mostly Ground to short zones will see a very different real-world increase than one shipping heavier packages to Zone 6–8.
- Rebudget quarterly instead of annually. Given how often carriers issue mid-year accessorial and fuel table updates, a January forecast is often stale by summer.
Strategies to Minimize the Financial Impact of a GRI
You can’t opt out of a GRI. But you can control how much of it actually reaches your bottom line.
Here are the strategies to put into place to minimize your impact:
Audit every invoice in the 60-90 days after a GRI takes effect
New surcharge tiers and updated ZIP code lists get misapplied more often right after a GRI. This is the highest-leverage window to catch billing errors and contract violations.
If you don’t have a system flagging these automatically, this is the exact gap that parcel audit software is built to close. It checks every invoice against your contract terms and the carrier’s own service guarantees.
Renegotiate the discount structure, not just the headline rate
Most shippers focus their negotiating leverage on the base rate discount and don’t pay attention to their accessorial discounts. Because your surcharges are outpacing the GRI, that’s where your savings live. Understanding which parts of a UPS or FedEx contract are actually negotiable is essential to a successful renegotiation. This includes minimum thresholds and surcharge caps, and they matter more with every GRI cycle.
Right-size packaging to avoid dimensional and oversize thresholds
Additional handling and oversize charges are climbing well past the GRI average, and they’re triggered by package dimensions, not just weight. Reviewing how the dimensional weight is calculated against your current packaging can quietly remove a surcharge you didn’t know you were paying.
Build ongoing carrier contract management into your process
A GRI is a good forcing function to revisit your contract at least once a year rather than letting it renew untouched. Modern carrier contract management increasingly relies on benchmarking your actuals against industry data in real time, rather than waiting for the next scheduled negotiation.
Know what you’re being overcharged for before you negotiate
Carriers don’t always apply your contracted discounts correctly, and misclassified residential or delivery-area charges are common. Identifying overcharges in carrier invoices before your next contract conversation gives you leverage that the carrier can’t easily dispute.
dash.fi’s shipping audit runs in the background of all of this. It’s free with the card and checks every invoice against your contract and carrier service guarantees. Plus, you’ll keep 100% of anything it recovers.
Combined with 3% cash back on the full invoice amount, including surcharges, the rebate itself scales up as the GRI pushes your total spend higher rather than shrinking against it.
What the Data Says About Rising Shipping Costs
The 2026 GRI isn’t happening in isolation. Supply Chain Dive’s coverage of the 2026 increase notes it marks FedEx’s third straight year at 5.9%, arriving alongside surcharge hikes across additional handling, oversize, delivery area, and residential fees on the same effective date. Broader pricing data backs up the trend at the industry level.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Producer Price Index for couriers and express delivery services has trended upward over the past year. This reflects the same compounding effect of base rates plus surcharges playing out across the parcel industry as a whole, not just at FedEx and UPS.
FAQs
What is a General Rate Increase (GRI)?
A GRI is the annual adjustment FedEx and UPS make to their published base transportation rates. It’s typically announced in the fall and effective the following January.
Do GRIs affect surcharges and other accessorial fees?
Not directly. GRIs apply to base rates. But carriers routinely raise surcharges on the same effective date and continue adjusting them separately throughout the year, often at a faster rate than the GRI itself.
How long does a general rate increase last?
A GRI technically holds until the next annual announcement. But carriers now regularly issue mid-year surcharge, fuel, and accessorial updates, so treat the January number as a starting point rather than a fixed annual figure.
A GRI headline tells you what the carriers want you to notice. Your actual increase is written into your shipment mix, your surcharge exposure, and your contract’s fine print. And that’s the part worth budgeting for.
