Every year, FedEx and UPS announce their General Rate Increase (GRI)—and every year, shippers brace for impact. But here’s the real question: Is the GRI number the one you should be watching?
While the annual rate increase makes headlines, it only tells part of the story. The base rate adjustment matters, but surcharges, accessorial fees, and mid-year pricing changes often have a far greater impact on your bottom line. Understanding what a GRI is—and more importantly, what it isn’t—can help you build a more accurate shipping budget and avoid costly surprises throughout the year. Let’s dive in.
Key Takeaways
- A General Rate Increase (GRI) in parcel shipping is an annual adjustment to base shipping rates
- FedEx and UPS announced a 5.9% GRI for 2026, consistent with the past two years
- Surcharges and accessorials operate independently from the GRI and often have a greater impact on your budget
- Year-round visibility and proactive negotiation are critical to managing rising shipping costs
What is a GRI in Shipping?
A General Rate Increase (GRI) is an annual adjustment to the base shipping rates charged by parcel carriers. Each year, major carriers like FedEx and UPS announce their GRI, which applies a percentage increase to their published list rates for ground, express, and other shipping services.
Think of the GRI as the starting point for your shipping costs, not the final number. It sets the baseline from which all other charges, including surcharges and accessorials, are calculated. While the GRI gets the most attention during annual planning cycles, it’s just one piece of a much larger pricing puzzle.
What is the GRI for 2026?
FedEx and UPS each announced a 5.9% General Rate Increase for 2026—the same headline number shippers saw in both 2025 and 2024. On the surface, this consistency might seem predictable. But shippers who stop at the headline number are missing the bigger picture.
The annual GRI remains an important benchmark, but for many shippers, its impact on total costs will be overshadowed by what’s happening elsewhere. Accessorial charges, surcharge fees, and service-level adjustments are shifting more frequently than ever. Carriers are introducing these changes with little warning, reflecting a broader move toward dynamic, data-driven pricing strategies designed to protect their revenue.
Surprisingly enough, this year’s GRI is less impactful than in years past, indicating a reduced reliance on GRIs in carrier pricing strategies.
So, the 5.9% increase is just the tip of the iceberg. What’s happening beneath the surface—through surcharges and mid-year adjustments—often hits harder than the GRI itself.
Why The GRI Shouldn’t Drive Your Shipping Budget
If you’re building your annual shipping budget around the GRI alone, you’re underestimating your true costs. The GRI only applies to base shipping rates; it doesn’t account for the surcharges and fees that stack on top of every shipment.
Here’s the challenge: surcharges aren’t static. They shift throughout the year based on carrier costs, demand fluctuations, and operational factors. A fuel surcharge in January may look very different by July. Peak season surcharges appear and disappear. Residential delivery fees creep up. These variables make it nearly impossible to predict your total spend based on a single annual percentage.
The GRI gives you a baseline, but your actual shipping costs depend on a complex mix of service types, package characteristics, delivery zones, and accessorial charges. Treating the GRI as your primary budgeting tool leaves too much to chance.
Do GRIs Affect Surcharges, Zone Charges, and Other Accessorials?
Surcharges and accessorials are a component of General Rate Increases (GRIs), with annual increases announced at the same time. However, they are not constrained by the 5.9% rate cap and increase independently.
This is why monitoring the GRI alone isn’t enough. A shipper who budgets for a 5.9% increase but ignores a 10% jump in residential surcharges will end up with a significant gap between projected and actual costs. Surcharges and accessorials require their own tracking and strategy.
4 Ways Shippers Can Prepare for the Annual GRI
The best defense against rising shipping costs starts with understanding your shipping profile. This is the data that defines your operation: service types, package weights and dimensions, pickup and delivery locations, and the surcharges you encounter most often. Carriers use this information to set the rates and terms in your contract, so you should use it too.
What’s your shipping profile telling you? Take a close look at which surcharges are eating into your budget, where the bulk of your spend is concentrated, whether DIM weight is inflating your costs, and which service types you rely on most. These insights reveal where you’re most vulnerable to rate increases—and where you have leverage to negotiate.
Once you understand your shipping profile, put these strategies into action:
- Monitor carrier announcements closely. Don’t wait for the annual GRI to pay attention. Carriers release surcharge updates and policy changes throughout the year, often with just a few weeks’ notice. Follow along with Reveel’s Surcharge Watch series.
- Negotiate fixed-rate contracts. Locking in rates can shield your budget from frequent hikes and give you more predictable costs. Shippers may also consider percent-based discount incentives. These allow businesses to reduce shipping costs by a set percentage off published rates, often based on volume, carrier, and service type.
- Diversify your carrier mix. Working with multiple carriers creates competition for your business and reduces your exposure to any single carrier’s rate increases.
- Invest in parcel spend management technology. Visibility into your shipping data year-round helps you catch cost creep early and respond proactively.
Your GRI and Shipping Surcharge Survival Guide
The annual GRI isn’t the main story anymore. While shippers have traditionally focused on that headline percentage, surcharges are quietly eating away at budgets in ways the base rate increase never could.
The impact on shippers is significant. Pricing changes no longer follow a predictable annual cycle. They come in waves throughout the year, often buried in carrier announcements that are easy to miss.
Now more than ever, shippers must maintain visibility into how pricing shifts year-round. The most successful logistics teams take proactive steps to repackage, reroute, and renegotiate in order to keep costs under control. Waiting until the next GRI announcement to reassess your strategy means leaving money on the table.
Ready to take control of your shipping costs? Download Reveel’s 2026 GRI and Surcharge Survival Guide for a complete breakdown of this year’s changes and actionable strategies to protect your budget.
