UPS and FedEx General Rate Increase: What a GRI Is and How to Offset It Each Year

Every year, UPS and FedEx announce a general rate increase that resets the base price of ground, air, and international shipping for the next 12 months. The headline number, a 5 to 6 percent annual lift that has been the norm since 2019, hides the real story: accessorials and surcharges consistently rise faster than the GRI and drive most of the true year-over-year cost increase on e-commerce parcels.

Below: what a GRI actually is, how UPS and FedEx structure their annual changes, which surcharges move invoices most, and how to plan for the GRI every year. For current-year specifics, see our UPS and FedEx 2026 Rate Increases breakdown.

What is a general rate increase (GRI)?

A general rate increase is the annual percentage lift that UPS and FedEx apply to their published base rates. Each carrier sets the GRI on its own, though in practice they land within a few tenths of a percent of each other every year. The GRI covers domestic ground, domestic air, and international services, with the exact percentage varying by service and zone.

The carriers publish the GRI percentage in a press release and a full set of rate tables on their websites. The press release gives the headline average. The tables give the line-by-line truth, which can diverge from the headline by several percentage points on any given lane.

When do UPS and FedEx announce and apply the GRI?

FedEx usually announces its GRI in September and applies the new rates on the first Monday of January. UPS typically announces in October or November and applies the new rates in the last week of December. That gives shippers roughly two to three months of lead time before the new rates hit, which is the window you should use to re-audit contracts and rebuild landed cost models.

How big is the GRI historically?

The GRI has averaged in the mid-to-high single digits every year since 2019. Recent years have clustered between 4.9 percent and 6.9 percent:

2019: 4.9 percent average increase at both UPS and FedEx.

2020: 4.9 percent average, with larger increases on specific Air and International services.

2021: 4.9 percent average.

2022: 5.9 percent average, the first year of the 5.9 percent cadence.

2023: 6.9 percent average at both carriers, the largest annual GRI in two decades.

2024: 5.9 percent average.

2025: 5.9 percent average.

2026: 5.9 percent average, with expanded Peak surcharges.

The pattern is clear: plan for a 5 to 6 percent base GRI every year, plan for accessorials to rise faster, and budget for a 7 to 10 percent blended cost increase on e-commerce parcels.

Why do accessorials rise faster than the GRI?

The base GRI is the number the carriers lead with in press coverage. Accessorial surcharges, which cover residential delivery, Additional Handling, Large Package, Address Correction, Peak and Demand, and Fuel, often move by double digits year over year. Two reasons:

Accessorials don't make headlines. Raising a $6.50 Additional Handling fee to $7.50 is a 15 percent lift, but it doesn't generate the same customer pushback as raising the base rate.

Accessorials cover the fastest-growing cost centers. Residential last-mile delivery, oversized packages from DTC brands, and peak season labor are where the carriers' own costs are climbing fastest.

For an e-commerce shipper with a high share of residential and dimensional packages, the real invoice impact is almost never the headline GRI alone.

Which surcharges should shippers watch every year?

The surcharge categories that move invoices most year over year are:

Residential delivery. Hits e-commerce brands directly because most orders go to homes.

Additional Handling. Triggers on length, weight, or packaging irregularities. Rules shift every year, and a one-inch change in box size can push a parcel across a fee threshold.

Large Package. Triggers on packages over 96 inches length plus girth. Fees routinely exceed the base shipping rate.

Peak and Demand. Wider triggering windows and higher per-package amounts. Often applied from late November through early January.

Fuel. Floats weekly based on published diesel indexes. Even without a GRI change, fuel alone can move costs several percent.

Dimensional Weight. Not a surcharge in itself, but divisor changes and minimum billable weight updates shift which packages get dim-weighted.

Address Correction. Each mistake is a per-package fee. Address hygiene is real money.

How should I read the GRI announcement every year?

The carrier press release is a starting point, not a plan. Here is the checklist for reading each year's GRI the right way:

Find the effective date. FedEx typically applies on the first Monday of January, UPS in late December.

Download the full rate tables. Read them against your actual shipping profile, not the headline number.

Identify surcharge changes. Compare last year's Additional Handling, Large Package, and Peak triggers to this year's. Thresholds often shift.

Model the blended impact on your parcels. Multiply your actual shipment distribution by the new rates and surcharges. The delta is your real GRI impact, not the press-release number.

Renegotiate or change channels. If the blended impact is above 5 to 6 percent, your contract is either out of date or your routing has drifted toward premium services.

How can shippers offset the annual GRI?

Five moves work every year, regardless of the specific percentage:

Re-audit recent invoices. Billing errors are more common as accessorial rules get complex. Carrier-specific audit tools or a 3PL's ops team surface recoverable charges.

Rate shop per order. Stop defaulting to a single carrier. Use multi-carrier shipping software that picks the best service for each parcel by zone and weight. See our ecommerce fulfillment services for how this works at scale.

Right-size packaging. Cut dim weight and avoid Additional Handling triggers. One inch off a box often saves a full fee tier.

Shorten zones. Ship from a closer node. An East Coast fulfillment hub covers roughly 70 percent of U.S. households in one to two ground days.

Improve inventory planning. Using tools like economic order quantity and accurate days-on-hand thresholds keeps you from overnighting replenishment because a warehouse ran out.

How does 3PL Center help shippers manage the GRI every year?

3PL Center runs pre-negotiated UPS, FedEx, and USPS accounts with rates that outperform what most small and mid-sized brands can get directly. Our warehouse management system rate-shops every order, flags dim weight and surcharge risk at pack time, and routes each order through the carrier and service combination that hits the delivery promise at the lowest landed cost.

Rate increases are not going to stop. The answer is not to chase each year's news. It is to build a fulfillment operation where the GRI is absorbed by rate shopping, packaging discipline, and multi-node coverage, before it ever hits your P and L. For a detailed look at the current year, see our UPS and FedEx 2026 Rate Increases and the USPS vs UPS vs FedEx After 2026 Rate Changes comparison.