The increases in shipping costs you are seeing are real, and the headline “annual rate increase” numbers substantially understate the change in actual shipping cost—particularly for USPS packages and, more recently, LTL freight because of diesel.

I looked at the period from roughly February 2025 through August 21, 2026. There are some important differences among the three modes.

What has happened to shipping costs

There is considerably more detail behind those numbers.

1. UPS: the 5.9% increase doesn’t tell the whole story

UPS implemented its latest 5.9% General Rate Increase effective December 22, 2025. UPS had also implemented a 5.9% increase in December 2024, just outside a strict 18-month window. UPS confirms that the 2025 increase applied to both base rates and accessorial charges.

But actual 2026 increases on many common charges were higher than 5.9%:

• Commercial Ground Delivery Area Surcharge: +7.14%
• Extended Commercial DAS: +6.54%
• Ground Residential Surcharge: +6.56%
• Additional Handling: generally +6.6% to +7.3%
• Large Package Surcharge: as much as +9.2%

UPS also changed dimensional/handling rules, meaning some cartons that previously escaped Additional Handling or dimensional-weight treatment can now trigger it.

Then there is fuel

This is increasingly important.

In March 2025, UPS Ground’s published fuel surcharge was about 18.25%. UPS subsequently revised its fuel-surcharge tables, including another structural upward adjustment in April 2026. At equivalent diesel prices, that April change added roughly 0.25 to 1.50 percentage points to Ground fuel surcharges. UPS made another domestic fuel-surcharge-table change effective August 10, 2026.

And fuel itself has exploded. The EIA’s (U.S. Energy Information Administration) national diesel price was $5.454/gallon on August 17, 2026, versus approximately $3.71 a year earlier.

Therefore, I would not budget UPS at +5.9%.

For a typical commercial shipper, I would use 8–12% as a more realistic increase in UPS cost versus comparable 2025 shipments, and potentially 15%+ for shipments exposed to residential, delivery-area, additional-handling, large-package, or dimensional-weight charges.

That could be particularly relevant for irrigation products because relatively long, bulky or irregular cartons get disproportionately affected.

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2. USPS: this is the biggest surprise

USPS increases have been much larger.

January 19, 2025

USPS increased:

• Ground Advantage: 3.9%
• Priority Mail: 3.2%
• Priority Mail Express: 3.2%
• Parcel Select: 9.2%

That increase falls just outside a strict February 2025–August 2026 18-month calculation, but you would have been paying it throughout virtually the entire period.

July 13, 2025

USPS raised shipping rates again:

• Ground Advantage: 7.1%
• Priority Mail: 6.3%
• Parcel Select: 7.6%
• Priority Mail Express: no increase.

January 18, 2026

Another increase:

• Ground Advantage: 7.8%
• Priority Mail: 6.6%
• Priority Mail Express: 5.1%
• Parcel Select: 6.0%

April 26, 2026 — the big additional hit

USPS then imposed a temporary 8% transportation-related increase on:

• Ground Advantage
• Priority Mail
• Priority Mail Express
• Parcel Select

It is scheduled to remain through January 17, 2027. USPS specifically attributed this to increased transportation costs and contrasted it with competitors’ fuel surcharges.

USPS does not impose a separate fuel surcharge like UPS or an LTL carrier. This 8% transportation increase is effectively serving a similar purpose.

Cumulative USPS effect

Because percentages compound rather than simply additon:

Ground Advantage, starting after February 2025:

1.071 × 1.078 × 1.08 = 1.2469

So Ground Advantage has increased by approximately 24.7% since early 2025.

Priority Mail:

1.063 × 1.066 × 1.08 = 1.2238

That’s approximately 22.4%.

And if we use the January 19, 2025 rates as the starting point—which is only one month beyond the requested 18-month period—the cumulative increase becomes approximately:

That’s an extraordinary increase in less than two years.

So if you have noticed that USPS is no longer nearly as inexpensive compared with UPS as it used to be, the numbers support what you’re seeing.

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3. LTL freight is a different story

LTL does not have a single industrywide GRI. Each carrier has its own tariff, negotiated rates, discounts, freight classes, and fuel-surcharge table.

But we can get a good picture from major carriers.

For example, ArcBest/ABF implemented a 5.9% GRI in August 2025, while prices on individually negotiated accounts renewed during 2025 increased an average of 4.6%.

Saia implemented a 5.9% GRI on October 1, 2025. Its prior GRI in October 2024 was 7.9%.

Old Dominion’s underlying LTL revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel increased 4.8% during 2025. XPO’s equivalent yield measurement increased 6.0% during 2025.

And that pattern continued into 2026:

• Old Dominion Q2 2026 underlying price/yield excluding fuel: +5.5%
• XPO Q2 2026 yield excluding fuel: +4.4%.

So I would characterize underlying LTL linehaul inflation as approximately 4–6% per year, or roughly 8–10% cumulatively over an 18-month-ish period for shippers whose contracts were repriced along the way.

But fuel has changed the equation dramatically

This is probably contributing significantly to what you are seeing right now.

For Old Dominion, the current LTL fuel surcharge is 43.32%. One year ago it averaged 28.32%. That’s an increase of 15 percentage points in the surcharge itself.

Other carriers are similar:

• Southeastern Freight Lines: 41.66%
• AAA Cooper: 44.50%
• DOE’s standardized LTL calculation: 31%
• Some regional carrier formulas are currently above 40–50%.

And Old Dominion gives us a very useful real-world measure of the combined effect.

During Q2 2026:

LTL revenue per hundredweight excluding fuel: +5.5%

but

LTL revenue per hundredweight including fuel: +15.2%

versus Q2 2025.

What I would use for budgeting

For analyzing your freight expenses, I would currently use these benchmarks:

The most significant recent problem is fuel. National diesel is now $5.454/gallon, up about 46–47% from a year ago, and LTL carrier fuel formulas are converting that into surcharges exceeding 40% at several major carriers.

There is also an important distinction for accounting: a 43% LTL fuel surcharge does not mean the total freight bill increased 43%. It means a 43% surcharge is being applied to the carrier’s eligible net freight charge. The resulting all-in increase is currently closer to the 10–15% year-over-year range illustrated by Old Dominion.

In summary, the price of shipping is not likely to decrease until we get a better handle on the price of fuel, driven by the current conflicts in the Middle East and their effect on the price of oil.

While this analysis focuses on the price our customers are experiencing, our suppliers are facing the same forces, which increase our costs to restock our warehouses.

Many thanks to my research assistant – ChatGPT – for gathering the research for this article.