Amazon to Apply 3.5% Fuel Surcharge to Third-Party Sellers -- WSJ

Dow Jones04-03 05:36

By Esther Fung

Amazon is imposing a 3.5% fuel surcharge on independent merchants that sell on its platform later this month, a move that could translate to higher prices for consumers.

The temporary fee goes into effect April 17 for many of the sellers who use Amazon's warehouses and delivery services to store inventory and ship orders. The e-commerce giant is the latest company to apply extra fees to offset rising energy costs as the Iran war enters its second month.

Amazon said that until now it had absorbed the higher fuel and logistics costs. "But similar to other major carriers, when costs remain elevated we implement temporary surcharges to partially recover these costs," a company spokeswoman said.

United Parcel Service and FedEx have also recently raised fuel surcharges to reflect rising oil prices. And last week, the U.S. Postal Service announced its first-ever fuel surcharge -- an 8% fee that it plans to apply to packages shipped April 26 to Jan. 17.

As of April 17, Amazon's fuel and logistics-related surcharge will apply to U.S. and Canadian sellers using its Fulfillment by Amazon option. Sellers using the Buy with Prime and Multi-Channel Fulfillment options will see the surcharge starting May 2.

Amazon, which hosts about two million sellers on its platform worldwide, said its surcharge is "meaningfully lower than other major carriers" and would be based on the fulfillment fees it charges third-party merchants, not on the sale price of items. FedEx and UPS update their fuel surcharges weekly based on prices published by the U.S. Department of Energy.

On average, the surcharge amounts to an extra 17 cents per unit for sellers using the Fulfillment by Amazon option and varies based on the item's dimensions, the company said. How much of those costs are then passed on to consumers is up to the sellers.

Amazon didn't provide a time frame for when the fuel surcharge would end.

Write to Esther Fung at esther.fung@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 02, 2026 17:36 ET (21:36 GMT)

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