Parcel Industry News | UPS Extends Peak Season Surcharges

Written by Branden Burt | Dec 22, 2020 2:54:16 PM

To the surprise of no one, UPS® has announced the continuation of its 2020 Peak Surcharges. This follows the recent, similar extension by FedEx®.

Below are the details of the UPS announcement, with some important contrasts noted:

FedEx’s extension of the Peak Surcharge will apply to every package shipped that qualifies for Additional Handling or Oversize, or is a SmartPost package regardless of the number of packages shipped. Conversely, UPS is only charging the Peak Residential or SurePost Surcharge for customers who shipped more than 25,000 Residential or SurePost packages during any week following February 2020.

UPS is also charging Peak Additional Handling and Large Package Surcharges for customers who have shipped more than 1,000 total packages or more than 10 packages that qualified for the Additional Handling or Large Package Surcharge during any week following February 2020. These are differences shippers will (hopefully) remember from the fine print when the Peak Surcharges were originally announced earlier this year.

Here are more details from the UPS website:

Peak Surcharge – Applied to UPS® Ground Residential and UPS SurePost® Packages

A Peak Surcharge will apply to certain UPS Ground Residential and UPS SurePost packages, for all U.S. domestic shipments, for
qualifying customers who have shipped more than 25,000 packages during any week following February 2020.

The Peak Surcharge will apply in the amounts set forth below to the indicated service levels during the specified Peak Period.

Service Levels Peak Period: January 17, 2021 until further notice
UPS Ground Residential $0.30 per package
UPS SurePost $0.30 per package

Peak Surcharge – Applied to Additional Handling and Large Packages


A Peak Surcharge will apply to packages that require Additional Handling and Large Packages, for all U.S. domestic, U.S. import, and U.S. export shipments, for qualifying customers who have shipped more than 1,000 total packages, or more than 10 packages that require Additional Handling or Large Packages, during any week following February 2020.

The Peak Surcharges will apply in the amounts set forth below during the specified Peak Period.

Other Charges Peak Period: January 17, 2021 until further notice
Additional Handling $3.00 per package
Large Package $31.45 per package

Click here to visit the UPS website for more details: https://www.ups.com/assets/resources/media/en_US/2020_UPS_Peak_Surcharges.pdf

Current UPS shippers should contact info@transimpact.com for an analysis detailing how the extended Peak Season Surcharges will impact their small parcel shipping costs in 2021.