Every schedule in this article is the US domestic one. If you sell in the UK or the EU, your local Amazon and carrier schedules carry different dates, different amounts and different inbound deadlines, so use this as a prompt to go and check them rather than as a set of numbers to copy. For US sellers: USPS, UPS, FedEx and Amazon have all published their 2026 holiday surcharges, and the dates do not line up. UPS starts on September 27. FedEx starts on September 28. USPS starts on October 4. Amazon's FBA peak fee starts on October 15, and Amazon Shipping, which is a different service with a different schedule, starts on October 25. If you use more than one fulfilment or carrier service, your cost per unit changes on two or more separate dates over the next seven weeks. Apply only the dates for the services you actually use, which for most sellers is a short list rather than all five.
The coverage of these announcements tends to lead with the largest figures, and those figures mostly belong to enterprise shippers. It is worth separating the two, because the fees that will actually appear on a normal seller's invoice are smaller, start on different dates, and in several cases are avoidable.
The start dates
Here is the calendar, taken from each carrier's own announcement.
- UPS: September 27, 2026 through January 16, 2027. UPS published its holiday demand surcharge schedule on August 26. Handling and size surcharges begin on September 27; the residential demand surcharge begins later, on October 25.
- FedEx: September 28, 2026 through January 17, 2027. FedEx announced its demand surcharge schedule on July 23. The charges it labels Demand Additional Handling, Demand Oversize and Demand Unauthorized begin September 28. Its residential and service level demand surcharges begin October 26, and prices reach their highest level between November 23 and December 27.
- USPS: October 4, 2026 through January 16, 2027. The Postal Service filed notice with the Postal Regulatory Commission on August 25 and the Commission approved the change on September 9. Temporary rates take effect at 12 a.m. CT on October 4 and stay in place until 12 a.m. CT on January 17, 2027, which makes January 16 the last day they apply to.
- Amazon FBA: October 15, 2026 through January 14, 2027. Amazon's holiday peak fulfillment fees run for that window, and unlike the carriers, the amount does not step up and down inside it.
- Amazon Shipping: October 25, 2026 through January 16, 2027. If you use Amazon Shipping to carry your own merchant-fulfilled parcels, that is a separate service with its own per-package demand surcharge, running from $0.50 to $0.75 depending on the week. It is additional to your contracted rates and has nothing to do with the FBA fee above.
Which of those dates are actually yours
Very few sellers are affected by all of them. Find yourself below and skip the dates that do not apply to you, but read every entry that does: these are common cases rather than a complete or mutually exclusive list, and plenty of sellers match more than one. If you ship on both USPS and UPS, for instance, both of those entries are yours. These are US domestic services; a UK or EU seller should read the equivalent local schedule instead.
- FBA only. Your fee date is October 15, and your inbound deadlines are October 14, 21 or 28 depending on how you send stock in. The carrier surcharges here do not land on your outbound orders, because Amazon buys that transport. They can still reach you on the way in: if you book UPS, FedEx or another carrier on your own account to send inventory to Amazon, those inbound boxes are subject to the same package-condition fees as anyone else's, so the box audit below still applies to them.
- Merchant-fulfilled on USPS. Your date is October 4. It is a rate table change rather than a package-eligibility surcharge, so it is not restricted to particular packages the way the carrier fees are. That does not make it a flat adder: the increase varies by product, zone, weight and whether you are on retail or commercial pricing, so map it against the bands you actually ship rather than applying one number to everything.
- Merchant-fulfilled on UPS or FedEx. You have two dates each: September 27 or September 28 for the package-condition fees, then October 25 or October 26 for the demand surcharges. The first pair is the one worth acting on.
- Merchant-fulfilled on Amazon Shipping. Your date is October 25, on a schedule of its own. Note that Amazon Shipping also charges its own package-condition fees, so the box audit below applies to you as well.
- Hybrid. If you run FBA alongside merchant-fulfilled orders, you are on two or more of these clocks at once, and they need to be separate lines in your cost model rather than one blended shipping figure.
- Other Amazon-fulfilled programs. These profiles are the common cases rather than a complete list. Amazon's October 15 peak fulfillment fee also covers Remote Fulfillment with FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime, so if you sell through any of those, October 15 is your date too even if none of the profiles above describes you.
USPS: a broad increase, now approved
The USPS change is the one most likely to touch a merchant-fulfilled seller, because it is not a surcharge bolted onto a rate. It is the rate.
The temporary prices apply to what the Postal Service describes as retail and commercial domestic competitive parcels, listing Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select. The Postal Service's own release does not state an average percentage. It gives dollar examples instead, including a $0.50 increase for Zones 1 to 4 at 0 to 3 lbs on retail Priority Mail and Ground Advantage, and a $20.80 increase for Zones 5 to 9 at 26 to 70 lbs on retail Priority Mail Express. The average comes from the regulator instead: the Commission's notice for Docket No. CP2026-10 tabulates a 6.0% average price increase for Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail and USPS Ground Advantage at both retail and commercial prices, and 6.0% for Parcel Select. That 6.0% is an average across each product, not an amount to add to every parcel. The actual dollar change varies by product, retail or commercial category, zone and weight, so price off the approved rate for the bands you ship rather than multiplying your current postage by 1.06.
One detail that most coverage skips: these rates needed regulatory sign-off rather than taking effect on the Postal Service's say-so, and they have now got it. The Commission approved the adjustments on September 9, 2026 in Order No. 9718, which orders that the proposed time-limited prices can take effect as scheduled, effective October 4 and reverting to existing levels on January 17, 2027. Treat October 4 as settled and reprice against the exact approved rate for the product, price category, zone and weight band you ship, rather than against the average.
UPS and FedEx: the headline fee is probably not your fee
This is where the reporting and the reality diverge most sharply.
Both carriers run two versions of their residential demand surcharge, and the expensive version applies only when the carrier's stated volume threshold is met. Check your own qualifying volume rather than assuming either way.
At UPS, the higher tier runs from $0.50 to $9.35 per package and applies, in the carrier's wording, to customers who are billed for more than 20,000 packages during any week following October 2025. The standard tier, which applies when those higher-volume conditions are not met, runs from $0.50 to $2.50 per package on UPS Ground Residential, Air and Ground Saver, starting October 25.
At FedEx the split is starker. The Demand Residential Delivery Charge of $1.70 to $9.35 applies to enterprise customers shipping more than 20,000 qualifying packages in a calculation week, which means residential packages other than FedEx One Rate, plus Ground Economy, with the amount recalculated weekly against a June 1 to June 28, 2026 baseline and applied on a two week lag. If you are under that threshold, what you pay instead from October 26 is considerably smaller:
- Ground Residential: $0.50 to $0.80 per package
- Ground Economy: $2.55 to $4.05 per package
- Overnight services: $1.30 to $2.55 per package
- 2Day services: $1.20 to $2.35 per package
The fees that actually hurt are the ones about your boxes
If you take one operational point from this article, take this one. Below the enterprise thresholds, the per package demand surcharges run from 50 cents to a few dollars, and the high-volume schedules reach $9.35. The handling and size surcharges run from single-digit dollars to several hundred. They carry no high-volume threshold, so any shipper can be charged them, though only on packages that meet the carrier's published handling, size or maximum-limit criteria. They also start earlier than the demand fees do.
For the September 27 to January 16 window at UPS, and September 28 to January 17 at FedEx:
- Additional handling: $8.75 to $11.90 per package at UPS; $8.80 to $11.85 at FedEx.
- Large package / oversize: $96.25 to $117.50 per package at UPS; $95.75 to $117.25 at FedEx.
- Over maximum limits / unauthorized package: $530 to $590 per package at UPS; $535 to $595 at FedEx.
Put those side by side. At the lowest listed demand surcharge of $0.50, a single package that trips additional handling costs you what roughly 18 to 24 small parcels would in demand surcharges. A package classified as over maximum limits costs more than a thousand of them, and on a thin-margin product that one charge can swallow the profit on a substantial run of orders. Both carriers also raised these amounts for 2026, so last year's figure is not a safe estimate.
Amazon Shipping charges its own package-condition fees during its peak window too, so if you ship through it, put your boxes through the same check against its published criteria rather than assuming only the per-package surcharge applies.
These are the surcharges worth spending an afternoon on, and the afternoon has to be this month: the UPS and FedEx windows open on September 27 and September 28. Re-measure and re-weigh your largest SKUs before then, check them against each carrier's current dimension and weight thresholds, and confirm the dimensions stored in your shipping software match the box you are actually using. Check the dimension, cubic volume and weight thresholds in the carriers' current 2026 service guides rather than assuming last year's still apply.
Amazon: fixed peak window, same average as last year, and two separate clocks
Amazon's holiday peak fulfillment fees apply from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027, covering Fulfillment by Amazon, Remote Fulfillment with FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime. The announcement puts the increase at an average of about $0.32 per unit, the same average as the previous holiday season.
Two things about that number are easy to get wrong. First, $0.32 is an average across the whole fee table, not a flat adder. The actual change varies by size tier and weight, so a light standard-size unit and a heavy large-bulky unit are affected very differently. Check the SKUs that carry your volume rather than applying the average across your catalog. Second, the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge still applies on top, so the peak fee is not the final number.
The inventory deadlines matter as much as the fees. For Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Amazon lists October 14 for Amazon Warehousing and Distribution, October 21 for FBA shipments using minimal shipment splits, and October 28 for shipments using Amazon-optimized splits. Amazon presents these as arrival deadlines for Prime badge eligibility, and its announcement does not identify a surcharge for missing them. The risk is different in kind: stock that lands late may not be checked in and available with a Prime badge for the event you sent it for.
What to do in the next two weeks
- Put only your own dates in the calendar, using the list above, as separate cost changes rather than one. An FBA-only seller is writing down October 15 for the fee, plus whichever of October 14, 21 or 28 matches how stock goes in, plus the relevant carrier dates if inbound freight is booked on their own account.
- If you ship your own parcels, re-measure your bulkiest SKUs now. The handling and oversize surcharges are the largest avoidable numbers on this page, and the UPS and FedEx windows open on September 27 and September 28. Amazon Shipping has equivalent package-condition fees.
- Check which demand tier you are actually in, using each carrier's own test. At UPS, check whether your qualifying volume exceeded 20,000 packages in any week after October 2025. Once that threshold has been met the higher schedule applies until further notice, so it is not something you drop back out of by shipping less this month. At FedEx, check each calculation week separately, and count only qualifying residential and Ground Economy packages, not your whole FedEx volume. If neither condition is met the headline $9.35 figures are not yours and you can budget the smaller schedules. If one is met, the amount is set from your own volume against a baseline and FedEx applies it on a two week lag, so it has to be forecast rather than read off a table.
- If you sell on FBA, check the peak fulfillment fee per SKU rather than applying the $0.32 average, and date that change from October 15. Amazon exposes SKU-level peak rates in its own fee tools.
- Confirm your inbound plan against the deadline that matches it. October 14 for AWD, October 21 for minimal shipment splits, October 28 for Amazon-optimized splits. If a shipment is not going to make its date, change the split option or the replenishment plan now, while that is still a choice.
- Update your per-unit costs in whatever system you use to calculate profit, keeping fulfillment cost and merchant-carrier cost as separate lines, and dating each from its own start date rather than applying it retroactively across the year.
- Re-check your break-even on thin-margin SKUs. A product running at a few percent net margin can go negative on the combination of a higher postage rate and a peak fulfillment fee.
That fourth point is the one that quietly distorts Q4 reporting. If you overwrite a single flat cost figure, every order from August is suddenly valued at October's cost, and your year to date profit is wrong in both directions. SellerLegend stores cost as dated periods per product, with a from and to date on each one, and each sale is matched to the period covering its own date. A period starting October 15 therefore applies to orders from October 15 onward, and your September orders keep the cost that was in force when they sold. Net profit per SKU is then built from what Amazon actually reported on your settlements, including the fulfillment and commission fees, rather than from estimated fees, set against the costs you maintain such as cost of goods and shipping. The Amazon side is reported rather than modelled; the accuracy of the rest depends on keeping the costs you enter current, which is exactly what the dated periods are for. You can see the effect on per-SKU profit tracking, and set the dated costs themselves under cost of goods. If the deadlines above are the tighter constraint for you, restock planning is the more relevant view.
Key takeaways
- Five US service-specific start dates, not five dates for every seller: UPS September 27, FedEx September 28, USPS October 4, Amazon FBA October 15, Amazon Shipping October 25. Apply only the ones for services you actually use.
- USPS temporary rates were approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission on September 9, 2026 in Order No. 9718. They start October 4 and end at 12 a.m. CT on January 17, 2027, making January 16 the last affected day.
- The $9.35 residential demand surcharges are volume-gated, but the two carriers test it differently: UPS applies its higher schedule to customers billed for more than 20,000 packages in any week following October 2025, while FedEx tests each calculation week on qualifying residential and Ground Economy packages only. Outside those higher schedules the published range is $0.50 to $4.05 depending on service, so check which test you fall under.
- Additional handling ($8.75 to $11.90), oversize ($95.75 to $117.50) and over-limit charges ($530 to $595) carry no volume threshold and are the largest avoidable costs in the schedule. One additional-handling charge equals roughly 18 to 24 small-parcel demand surcharges.
- Amazon's peak fulfillment fee averages about $0.32 per unit from October 15 to January 14, varies by size and weight, and sits underneath the separate 3.5% surcharge.
- Inventory deadlines for Black Friday and Cyber Monday are October 14 for AWD, October 21 for FBA with minimal shipment splits and October 28 for FBA with Amazon-optimized splits. Late stock risks missing the Prime badge for the event, not a surcharge.
Peak season costs are not a surprise this year. They are published, dated and specific, which means the main risk left is applying them to your numbers too late to change a price. Start a 21-day SellerLegend trial and go into Q4 knowing what each unit actually earns.
Sources
Primary schedules and filings:
- UPS, 2026 Demand Surcharges schedule (updated August 26, 2026)
- FedEx, Demand Surcharges
- U.S. Postal Service, Temporary Price Change for the 2026 Holiday Shipping Season
- Postal Regulatory Commission, Order No. 9718, Order Approving Price Adjustments for Domestic Competitive Products (issued September 9, 2026, Docket No. CP2026-10)
- Postal Regulatory Commission, Docket No. CP2026-10 / Order No. 9703, Competitive Postal Products (Federal Register, August 31, 2026)
- Amazon Seller Forums, Holiday 2026 fulfillment fees and deadlines
- Amazon Shipping, 2026 peak surcharge
Reporting and context:
