Two different numbers
The U.S. Energy Information Administration publishes a weekly on-highway diesel price. Carriers map that price to a ground fuel surcharge percentage using their own published tables (air services use a jet fuel index). The index is in dollars per gallon; the surcharge is a percentage of your charges. They should never share a column.
Table changes
Carriers revise the tables themselves. UPS changed its domestic tables effective Nov. 2, 2026 and FedEx effective Nov. 9, 2026. UPS also announced domestic fuel surcharge changes effective March 9, 2026 and April 13, 2026 on ups.com. A table change can add a fraction of a point at the same diesel price. On every $1 million of fuel-assessable charges, each 1 percentage point is $10,000 before any fuel discount.
Use percentage points
If a surcharge moves from 29.25% to 30.50%, it rose 1.25 percentage points, not 1.25%. The relative increase is 4.3%. This site always reports differences between surcharge percentages in percentage points.
Track it weekly
The fuel tracker records each week’s UPS and FedEx percentages, labels each as carrier-published, estimated or stale, and keeps every past week unchanged.
- Figures are published list amounts before discounts, calculated from the dataset on the date shown.
- General information, not legal or financial advice. No savings are promised.