First published in Selling From the Beach on September 28, 2026.
The short version
Price like every surcharge is permanent. If one ever comes off, that's margin you didn't count on.
Is the Amazon fuel surcharge really temporary?
In September 2026 Amazon sent me an email about holiday fees. Peak fulfillment fees start October 15, same as in 2025. Then one more line: the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge they added in April 2026 "applies on top of holiday peak fulfillment fees."
My first thought was "Do these ever end?" My second thought was "probably not."
You might not remember Spring 2022. That spring, Amazon added a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge. Later that year our old friend Dharmesh explained it was for what they believed "may only be temporary cost increases." In January 2023 the surcharge went away as its own line. The cost moved into the regular FBA fee, and we’ve all been paying it ever since.
The 2026 one has no end date either. Amazon's words: "when costs remain elevated, we implement temporary surcharges."
Why do prices go up like rockets and come down like feathers?
Economists have a name for this: Rockets and Feathers.
In 1990, Britain's competition regulator finished an inquiry into the gas companies. One complaint in it was that when costs went up, pump prices shot up like rockets. When costs came down, prices drifted down like feathers.
An economist named Robert Bacon, at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, went and measured it. He took seven years of UK gas prices and checked how fast they moved each way. The complaint was real, but small. Price cuts took about a week longer to show up than price rises. The gap was too small for him to call the market uncompetitive.
So the feather came down. Slower than the rocket went up, but it came down. In plain terms, if one station sat on a high price, drivers could go to the next one.
Why doesn't Amazon's feather come down?
Amazon's fees went up like a rocket too. But my feather from 2022 didn't… come down. The surcharge line disappeared and the cost stayed in the base fee. Why? because there's no station across the street for me. My reviews, my rank, my whole catalog live on Amazon, and none of it comes with me if I leave. Amazon knows that. The sellers I talk to mostly figure the 3.5% is permanent already.
Every business raises prices eventually (I get it). Amazon is just a business whose customers can't pull into the next station.
In this story, you're the driver with nowhere else to fill up. Price like every surcharge is permanent. If one ever comes off, that's margin you didn't count on.
What is the Amazon fuel surcharge?
Amazon's name for it is the fuel and logistics-related surcharge, which is 3.5% of the fulfillment fee on each unit.
- The surcharge started April 17, 2026 for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) in the US and Canada.
- From May 2, 2026, Amazon also applies the surcharge to Buy with Prime in the US and to Multi-Channel Fulfillment (MCF) in the US and Canada.
- Amazon puts the average surcharge at $0.17 per unit for US FBA.
- As of October 13, 2026, the surcharge has no end date, and Amazon says it "will continue to evaluate this surcharge as conditions evolve."
- Holiday peak fulfillment fees run from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027 and average $0.32 per unit above non-peak rates, and the surcharge "will apply on top of holiday peak fulfillment fees."
What happened to Amazon's 2022 surcharge?
Amazon's April 2022 announcement said: "Rather than a permanent fee change, we will be employing a fuel and inflation surcharge for the first time."
On November 17, 2022, Dharmesh Mehta, Vice President, Worldwide Selling Partner Services, wrote to sellers: "These cost increases have not attenuated as quickly as we had hoped, so we will adjust our standard FBA fee rates to account for these increased costs and we will remove the separate Fuel & Inflation Surcharge at this time."
In December 2023 Amazon said it would cut standard-size FBA fulfillment fee rates by $0.20 per unit on average from April 15, 2024, the same day Amazon said its first inbound placement fees would begin to be charged. Across that set of 2024 fee changes, Amazon expected an average increase of $0.15 in fees per unit sold, and added that "there will be many sellers who will see a decrease."
What does a 3.5% surcharge add per unit and per 1,000 units?
The sample item is made up: large standard-size, not apparel or dangerous goods, 12+ to 16 oz shipping weight, priced between $10 and $50. Every fee comes from Amazon's 2026 US FBA fee table, which excludes the surcharge.
Non-peak rate (January 15 to October 14, 2026; the surcharge applies from April 17)
| Step | What | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fulfillment fee before the surcharge | From Amazon's table | $4.60 |
| 2 | Surcharge per unit (3.5% = 0.035) | $4.60 × 0.035 | $0.161 (about $0.16) |
| 3 | Fulfillment fee with the surcharge | $4.60 + $0.161 | $4.76 |
| 4 | Surcharge on 1,000 units | $0.161 × 1,000 | $161.00 |
| 5 | Price rise that covers the surcharge, if the referral fee is 15% | $0.161 ÷ (1 minus 0.15) = $0.1894, rounded up | $0.19 |
Peak rate (October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027)
| Step | What | Math | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Fulfillment fee before the surcharge | From Amazon's table | $4.89 |
| 2 | Surcharge per unit (3.5% = 0.035) | $4.89 × 0.035 | $0.17115 (about $0.17) |
| 3 | Fulfillment fee with the surcharge | $4.89 + $0.17115 | $5.06 |
| 4 | Surcharge on 1,000 units | $0.17115 × 1,000 | $171.15 |
| 5 | Price rise that covers the surcharge, if the referral fee is 15% | $0.17115 ÷ (1 minus 0.15) = $0.2014, rounded up | $0.21 |