The FBA Surcharge Is the Easy Part

Five weeks into the war in Iran, Amazon told its third-party sellers on Thursday that a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge would be added to their fulfillment fees starting April 17. The surcharge applies to sellers in the U.S. and Canada, calculated against fulfillment fees rather than sale price, and equates on average to an additional $0.17 per unit for FBA shipments, varying by item size and dimensions, the company said. On May 2, according to Supply Chain Dive, the charge extends to Buy with Prime in the U.S. and Multi-Channel Fulfillment in the U.S. and Canada. Amazon provided no end date.

Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek said the surcharge is “meaningfully lower” than levies applied by other major carriers, and that the company had absorbed elevated costs before passing them on. That comparison has merit. UPS and FedEx surcharges now run roughly 20% to 25% of shipping costs, according to Axios. Against that backdrop, 3.5% is a narrow addition. The more useful frame for sellers is not how the surcharge compares to UPS rates but what it adds to a fee structure that was already moving before the Iran conflict began.

In 2022, Amazon implemented a 5% fuel and inflation surcharge on FBA fees, framed it as temporary, then folded it into broader fee restructuring rather than reversing it. The current charge is lower at 3.5%, but carries the same structural feature: no stated conditions for removal. Noah Wickham, VP of sales and marketing at Amazon seller agency My Amazon Guy, wrote in a LinkedIn post that he expects Amazon will “keep it regardless” even if fuel prices fall. His firm works with Amazon sellers, so this is practitioner observation rather than independent analysis, but the 2022 precedent supports the read.

UPS, FedEx, and USPS Are All Moving at Once

Amazon is not acting in isolation. Oil prices jumped more than 40% following the start of the Iran conflict, and the U.S. Postal Service is seeking an 8% fuel surcharge on packages effective April 26, which would be the first in its history, according to CNBC. UPS introduced a $0.64 per-pound surge fee for volume between the U.S. and 15 countries in the Middle East, and FedEx applied a $0.50 per-pound demand surcharge on shipments from the U.S. to dozens of countries across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa, Supply Chain Dive reported. UPS imposed its third domestic fuel surcharge increase of the year on March 9, according to FreightWaves.

For sellers managing multi-carrier fulfillment programs, the Amazon announcement is the most recent addition to a cost environment that has been moving since late February, not the opening move.

What Was Already on the Stack

The April 17 charge arrives on top of base rate changes that took effect in January. Amazon increased FBA fulfillment fees by an average of $0.08 per unit starting January 15, following a full freeze on increases in 2025, Supply Chain Dive reported. Buy with Prime fulfillment fees rose by $0.24 per unit on average, and Multi-Channel Fulfillment fees climbed an average of $0.30 per unit. Amazon described those as modest and pointed sellers toward packaging optimization and inventory management as offsets.

The fuel surcharge does not replace any of that. For sellers on standard-size items, the structure now includes base FBA fees, inbound placement fees, aged inventory surcharges for units stored beyond 181 days, low-inventory-level fees, and a fuel surcharge with no sunset date. Each line was characterized as manageable when introduced. The cumulative picture is what sellers modeling 2026 unit economics in late 2025 did not have.

Where the Exposure Differs

The surcharge does not hit every seller the same way, and the MCF dimension is where the math gets most consequential.

High-velocity, compact SKUs priced above $20 will likely absorb the $0.17 average per-unit FBA increase without fundamental margin disruption. Sellers in lower-ASP categories or carrying heavier items are running a harder calculation. The sharpest exposure sits with brands using Multi-Channel Fulfillment to serve Shopify storefronts, Walmart, or other off-Amazon channels from a shared inventory pool.

MCF fees rose $0.30 per unit on average in January against FBA’s $0.08 increase, already widening the cost gap between fulfilling Amazon marketplace orders and fulfilling off-Amazon orders from the same fulfillment centers. The May 2 extension of the fuel surcharge to MCF widens it further. Brands that chose MCF because it lets them serve multiple channels without splitting inventory are looking at a cost structure that has moved twice in ninety days. At low volumes the incremental exposure is modest. At the scale where MCF decisions get made by VP-level operations and supply chain teams, the compounding effect across a full SKU catalog is the number worth running before May 2, not after.

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