Inside the 2026 GRI For UPS and Fedex
The Reveel 2026 General Rate Increase & Surcharge Survival Guide is now available for download.
Parcel shipping performance and cost control are increasingly synonymous with business success, even beyond the omnichannel retailers and ecommerce companies that depend on it for fulfillment. Every year at Reveel, we analyze the General Rate Increases (GRIs) of FedEx and UPS to provide shippers with a guide they can use to understand how the carriers’ published shipping rates—and the pricing strategies they reflect—will impact their budgets. We combine these findings with insights that shippers can use to keep these rising shipping costs in check.
In that respect, this year’s guide follows the tradition of its predecessors, but some of you may notice that this year we made an important change to the title. This year’s analysis will simultaneously serve as a “surcharge survival guide.” This change is important because 2026 is shaping up to be one of the most consequential and unpredictable years yet, with carriers’ pricing models in a state of transition.
This year, the main event in carrier pricing – the annual 2026 GRI – remains important, but its impact on shippers’ costs in many cases will be overshadowed by surcharges. Accessorial charges, definitional changes, and even service level behaviors are changing rapidly. Introduced with little warning and increasing frequency, these incremental adjustments reflect a shift toward dynamic, data-driven pricing designed to protect carrier revenue.
The impact on shippers, and the business and financial operations they support, is great. Now, more than ever, shippers must maintain visibility into how pricing changes year-round and take proactive steps to repackage, reroute, and renegotiate in order to keep costs under control.
Our hope is that the 2026 GRI and surcharge guide provides shippers with the insights they need to address this new reality. Download your copy today.
