The fuel surcharge, this week
Nearly every freight invoice carries a fuel surcharge, and nearly every one of them starts from the same number: the national average price of diesel that the U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes each Monday. Here is that number, and what a carrier does with it.
How the number becomes a line on your invoice
Each carrier publishes its own table. The table pairs a band of diesel prices with a surcharge: a percentage of the line-haul for LTL, and usually cents per mile for truckload. Two carriers reading the same diesel price can land on different percentages, because the tables are theirs.
It moves weekly, with the price. When diesel steps into the next band, the surcharge steps with it. The base price and the size of the steps are written into the table, so the same shipment can cost a little more one week than the last with nothing else changed.
It applies to the line-haul, not the extras. Accessorials such as a liftgate or a residential delivery are flat charges; the surcharge is a share of the freight charge itself. That is why a cheaper base rate is worth more than it looks in a high-fuel month.
A contract can name the table. Shippers with volume sometimes negotiate which table applies, or a cap. If your invoices reference a table you have never seen, ask for it; it is a public document and we will send it.
Get a quote with the fuel line shownThe percentage on your invoice is the carrier’s, from its own table. What we do is know which table applies to your account and show it on the quote, so the fuel line is never a surprise. The longer read is Fuel Surcharges in Freight: What Shippers Must Know.
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