Accessorial Charges (overview)

Accessorial charges are any fees a carrier bills on top of the base linehaul rate to cover services or circumstances that fall outside a standard dock-to-dock shipment. They appear on freight invoices as separate line items and can include everything from detention and liftgate use to residential delivery surcharges and hazmat handling. For shippers managing high-volume freight, accessorials are one of the most unpredictable – and frequently disputed – components of transportation spend.

Common accessorials include detention and demurrage, liftgate delivery, inside delivery, limited access fees, residential surcharges, redelivery charges, stop-off fees, sorting and segregation, and fuel surcharges. Each carrier maintains its own accessorial tariff with specific rates, free-time allowances, and triggering conditions. The same service can be priced differently across carriers and may vary by mode – LTL accessorial schedules tend to be more granular than FTL, where detention and layover dominate.

Accessorials matter because they erode freight budgets quietly. Industry estimates put accessorial-related billing errors at 3–7% of total freight spend, driven by incorrect charges, duplicate billing, or fees applied outside contracted terms. Without a systematic audit process, shippers often pay invoices at face value simply because reviewing every line item manually is impractical at scale. Carriers aren't always wrong – sometimes the charge is legitimate but wasn't anticipated during planning, which points to a quoting or load-building gap upstream.

The most effective way to manage accessorials is to prevent avoidable ones at the planning stage – accurate shipment data, proper freight classification, and correct delivery requirements reduce surprise charges – and to audit every invoice against contracted terms after the fact. Shippers who track accessorial spend by lane, carrier, and charge type can identify patterns, renegotiate tariffs, and hold carriers accountable with data rather than guesswork.