USPS to Charge New Fees for Larger Packages on April 3

The US Postal Service (USPS) will implement new ‘Non-Standard Fees and Dimension Non-Compliance’ fees on Sunday, April 3, which will add significant costs to shippers who send large or irregular-sized shipments.

USPS originally planned to impose the added fees at the last rate adjustment on January 29, 2022. However, the Postal Service later announced it would delay the introduction of the new fees until April 3 to give industry partners additional time to plan and adjust for these changes.

The Non-Standard Fees mimic some fees that have been used by UPS and FedEx on irregular or oversized packages for many years to account for manual handling of packages. This is the Postal Service’s way of following that industry trend.

Of course, to ensure shippers will follow through with providing accurate dimensions for these and other large parcels, USPS is also adding a Non-Compliance fee.

Here is what this means for shippers:

• Non-Standard Fees: These new fees will apply to Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, Parcel Select, First Class Package Service, and USPS Retail Ground for manual sorting when the dimensions of the package exceed sortation requirements.
  • Package Length over 22″ – $4.00
  • Package Length over 30″ – $15.00
  • Package over 2 cu. ft. – $15.00

• Dimension Non-Compliance Fees: This new $1.50 fee on Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, and Parcel Select services will apply to shipments that are greater than one cubic foot or with a length longer than 22″ if the shipper did not provide dimensions or if the dimensions are incorrect in the electronic manifest file.

Sellers – Prepare Now For New USPS Fees

eBay and Etsy sellers should see the new Non-standard fees applied when printing labels using the marketplace integrated platform shipping systems.

However, sellers that use free shipping or fixed-price shipping costs on their listings should confirm the typical box sizes they may see for those items and adjust their prices accordingly.

Marketplace sellers and online merchants that use shipping platforms to process their online orders, including the US Postal Service’s Click-N-Ship website, should also see the new Non-Standard fees added to their label costs when entering the dimensions of their packages.

The Dimension Non-Compliance fee is an after-the-shipment fee that will be charged to shippers when USPS measures packages electronically during sorting.

This differentiates this fee from the Non-Standard fee as marketplaces and shipping platforms do not know if shippers are providing accurate shipping fees and USPS will charge the Non-Compliance fee to the marketplace or shipping platform, which in turn will charge the fee to its users.

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