Accessorial Charges
Definition
Accessorial charges are fees carriers add for services beyond standard dock-to-dock pickup and delivery, such as liftgate service, residential delivery, inside delivery, redelivery, or driver detention. They appear as line items on top of the base freight rate.
In Practice
Every carrier publishes an accessorial schedule listing extra-service fees. Common ones include liftgate (no dock at pickup or delivery), residential or limited-access locations, appointment scheduling, reweigh and reclassification, redelivery after a failed attempt, and detention for excessive loading time. Individually small, they routinely add 10 to 30 percent to LTL invoices when unmanaged.
The planner's job is to make accessorials predictable rather than surprising. That means capturing delivery requirements at order entry, so a residential liftgate stop is quoted correctly up front, and auditing invoices, because incorrectly applied accessorials are among the most common billing errors. Chronic accessorials also signal process fixes: better dims eliminate reweighs, and tighter dock scheduling eliminates detention.
For example, a shipment quoted at 400 dollars can invoice at 585 after a liftgate fee, residential fee, and a reclass, wiping out the margin on a small order.
Related Calculators
Related Terms
A freight rate is the price a carrier charges to move a shipment between two points, quoted per container, per truckload, per hundredweight, or per kilogram depending on the mode. Rates vary with distance, capacity, commodity, and market conditions.
DetentionDetention is a charge for keeping a carrier's equipment, such as a container outside the terminal or a trailer at a dock, longer than the agreed free time. In trucking it also refers to fees for holding a driver beyond the allotted loading or unloading window.
Less Than Truckload (LTL)Less than truckload shipping combines freight from multiple shippers in one trailer, with each paying only for the space and weight they use. It suits shipments of roughly one to ten pallets that are too big for parcel but too small for a full truck.
Fuel SurchargeA fuel surcharge is a variable fee carriers add to freight bills to pass through changes in fuel prices, usually calculated from a published index such as the US Department of Energy diesel average. It rises and falls with the market rather than being renegotiated.