Carrier General Rate Increases Are Coming: What Shippers Need to Know

If it feels like carrier rate hikes are becoming an annual tradition, you’re not imagining things. General Rate Increases (GRIs) from the major parcel and LTL carriers are once again on the horizon, and while the headlines might focus on a single percentage figure, the real cost impact is often much bigger and far more complex.

For most shippers, the challenge isn’t simply budgeting for a 5% or 6% hike. It’s understanding how that increase interacts with dozens of other factors that quietly push your transportation spend higher, and knowing how to respond strategically before those costs erode your margins.

What a GRI Really Means Today

At its simplest, a General Rate Increase is an across-the-board adjustment to a carrier’s base transportation rates. It’s how parcel and LTL carriers account for higher operating costs, from labor and equipment to fuel, insurance, and technology, and it’s typically announced annually.

But today, that base rate adjustment is only one piece of a much larger puzzle. GRIs are layered on top of a growing list of additional charges and policy changes, including:

• Fuel surcharges and frequent fuel index adjustments
• Residential delivery, additional handling, and oversize fees
• Payment processing or late payment penalties
• Dimensional weight pricing updates and zone realignments
• Peak season or demand-based surcharges
  
  

Individually, these changes might look manageable. Together, they reshape your cost structure in ways that make it difficult to predict, track, or control.

Why the Percentage Doesn’t Tell the Whole Story

When a carrier announces a 5.9% GRI, most shippers assume their costs will rise by roughly that amount. In reality, the total impact can be much higher, especially if your network profile triggers multiple accessorials or if dimensional changes push more shipments into higher-cost categories.

To make matters more complicated, GRIs don’t apply evenly across all service types, zones, or shipment characteristics. Some lanes might see modest increases, while others jump by double digits. And surcharges, which are not included in the GRI percentage, can pile on top of that base increase throughout the year.

The result? The “headline” GRI number is often just the tip of the iceberg.

Who Feels It Most

Every shipper is affected by a GRI, but not equally. Large-volume shippers with negotiated contracts sometimes see smaller increases or have surcharges waived altogether. Smaller and mid-sized businesses, especially those without the leverage to negotiate favorable terms, tend to absorb the brunt of the increases.

Even companies with negotiated discounts can see their transportation budgets spiral if they’re not monitoring how GRIs interact with surcharges, zone changes, or package characteristics. That’s why measuring the true combined impact, not just the published percentage, is critical.

GRI vs. Surcharges: A Cost-Driving Duo

GRIs and surcharges serve different purposes, but together they define your real cost to ship. GRIs are planned, long-term adjustments designed to keep rates aligned with inflation and rising operating expenses. Surcharges, on the other hand, are more dynamic, often tied to short-term conditions like peak demand, fuel volatility, or capacity constraints.

What’s important to remember is that one does not offset the other. A 6% GRI might sound manageable, but if accessorials rise another 3–4% across the year, your total spend could be closer to a 10% increase or more.

Strategies to Stay Ahead

While shippers can’t avoid GRIs altogether, there are proven ways to minimize their impact and regain control of your freight costs:

• Benchmark Your Current Rates: Compare your pricing with market averages and competitors using the same carriers and lanes. This helps you spot overpriced areas before renewals or renegotiations.
• Audit Freight Bills Automatically: Carriers make mistakes. Systematic auditing can catch overcharges and billing errors before you pay them.
• Leverage Volume and Consolidation: Combining shipments or increasing density can unlock better discounts and reduce per-shipment costs.
• Revisit Packaging and Dimensions: Small changes to size or weight can keep shipments out of higher-cost dimensional tiers.
• Diversify Your Carrier Mix: Adding regional or niche carriers can introduce competition and create pricing leverage.
• Negotiate Beyond the Base Rate: Push for caps on surcharges, payment terms, or DIM divisor concessions during contract talks, not just base rate discounts.

The Bottom Line

GRIs aren’t going away, and neither are the dozens of other line items that inflate your freight budget. The key to staying profitable isn’t trying to avoid increases altogether, but understanding their full impact and building a proactive strategy around them.

At Global Logistics Inc., we help companies do exactly that. Our team benchmarks your existing parcel and LTL programs against the market, identifies hidden cost drivers, and builds negotiation strategies that often reduce total spend by 10% to 30% without disrupting your current operations.

If you’re preparing for the next round of carrier increases, now is the time to get ahead of them. The earlier you start measuring and planning, the more room you’ll have to protect your margins and strengthen your customer experience.