On Friday September 13th, FedEx announced that their 2025 General Rate Increase (GRI) average would be 5.9%. This is in line with the average GRI increase that they, and UPS had announced for 2024. Shippers are anxiously awaiting UPS’s announcement of their 2025 GRI. However, given the history of these announcements, it is pretty safe to speculate that they will announce a 5.9% increase also.
As time has gone on, the average increase percentages that both carriers have announced has become less and less important. It has been widely documented and proven that the actual increase that a shipper should plan for, needs to be based on their actual shipping characteristics. The bottom line is that the 5.9% increase is just an average. The actual increase varies by the service used, weight and zone of the package.
To help illustrate this, we compared the newly released 2025 FedEx rate charts to their 2024 rate charts. For Ground, the cell by cell increases varied between 4.4% to 7.2%, depending on weight and zone. We saw the same scenario for Air products, with increases varying from as low as 3% to over 7.5%.
For shippers trying to budget for these increases in 2025, it is crucial to perform, (or have a consultant perform), an analysis of actual shipping volumes to determine the true impact of these increases. However, to provide shippers with some visibility of the changes, we put together a year over year comparison. You can view the comparison that we put together by clicking here.
Additionally, Accessorial rate changes can have a major impact on a shippers increase in cost. For example, FedEx increased the fees for Additional Handling and Oversize packages by more than 25% across the board. Our analysis showed that all of the Accessorial rate increases were more than 5.9%. You can view details of these increases by clicking here.
Also, given the never ending rate increases we have seen from the major carriers, (both announced and unannounced), we thought it would be interesting to compare FedEx rates from 2020 to their new 2025 rates. As we suspected- the increases over these 5 years have been significant! Most rates increased by around 35%. FedEx Express Saver rates have increased by around 45%. Details of our analysis can be found below:
FedEx List Rate Increase Comparison 2025 vs. 2020 – A Five Year Look Back
FedEx Fee & Surcharge Rate Increase Comparison 2025 vs. 2020 – A Five Year Look Back
As stated above, we do expect a UPS 2025 GRI increase announcement of 5.9% in the near future. We are also certain that the actual cell by cell increases will vary widely by zone, weight, and service. It will be interesting to see if UPS’ Accessorial increases will be in-line with those announced by FedEx. They may decide to increase Additional Handling and Oversize charges by even more, to keep some of these high cost to service packages out of their system. Of course we will be watching this closely and reporting on it as soon as the GRI increases are announced.
Regardless of the GRI announced by UPS we anticipate further pricing creativity from them, given the volume and profit challenges that they have been facing. We expect that shippers will need to be on the lookout for a continuation of the Zonal pair changes that occurred in 2024. Earlier this year, we released an article that detailed some of the changes that were made (which you can view by clicking here).
Additionally, let’s not lose sight of the unannounced rate increases that occurred in August (detailed in an article that we released by clicking here). We would not be surprised to see more of this in 2025.
Carriers are setting the stage to be able to pull pricing levers without shippers even knowing it. Failing to recognize when these changes take place, quantify the impact, and react accordingly can be extremely damaging to a company’s profits.
Now is the time for shippers to build a “Profit Protection Strategy.” This can only be accomplished by truly understanding the impact of the continuous rate increases and rule changes being implemented by the major carriers. A small investment in a Parcel Data Analysis by a competent Logistics consultant can pay major dividends for shippers. Reach out to us today to find out how.
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