Reselling News: eBay Waives the FedEx Holiday Surcharge on Its Labels, Not the UPS One

Holiday surcharge season opened this weekend, and for once the carrier you pick off the eBay dropdown changes the math more than the box does. UPS started charging on Saturday. FedEx starts today. On eBay labels, only one of them is actually collecting the headline fee.

eBay is absorbing the FedEx demand surcharge

eBay's 2026 seasonal carrier rate announcement, posted last week, confirms FedEx peak rates run September 28, 2026 through January 17, 2027. Then it quietly gives sellers the better half of the news: the FedEx Demand Surcharge is waived on eBay Labels for that entire window, across FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery residential shipments, FedEx Ground Economy, FedEx 2Day, FedEx Standard Overnight and FedEx Priority Overnight.

That is the per-package fee everybody has been bracing for since the summer. On FedEx's own demand surcharge schedule it climbs to 80 cents per residential ground package at the November 23 to December 27 peak. Print that label through eBay and, per eBay's announcement, you do not pay it.

UPS gets no such break

The same announcement puts UPS peak rates at September 27, 2026 through January 16, 2027, and there is no waiver attached. eBay says the UPS Demand Surcharge applies to Ground, Ground Saver and Air packages, with further charges on anything needing special handling or running past the size limits.

So two sellers can ship the same sweatshirt to the same address on the same platform this December, and the one who picked UPS pays a fee the FedEx seller does not. That is a real reason to look again at a carrier default you probably set months ago and have not touched since.

The size fees survive either way

The waiver covers the demand surcharge and nothing else. eBay is explicit that peak Additional Handling and Oversize charges still apply on FedEx labels, along with FedEx 2Day One Rate, though eBay rates on those run below retail. FedEx's published numbers put Demand Additional Handling at 8.80 dollars a package now and 11.85 dollars during the December peak, with the Oversize charge at 95.75 dollars rising to 117.25 dollars. UPS carries near-identical Additional Handling and Large Package charges that have been live since Saturday.

Those are the fees that wreck a margin, and they trigger on dimensions, not on what you think the box weighs. eBay's one piece of direct advice in the whole announcement is to enter accurate weight and dimensions when you create the label, because the platform will adjust pricing when the carrier disagrees with you.

One more date to keep in front of you: USPS temporary holiday rates start October 4 and run to January 17, so the cheap-postage window on your smaller items closes Saturday.

What this changes this week

Pull up your bulkiest active listings and measure the actual packed box, not the item. Anything flirting with an oversize threshold needs its shipping price fixed now or the listing repriced. Then check which carrier your calculated shipping is defaulting to, because through mid-January eBay is paying the FedEx demand fee for you and leaving the UPS one on your invoice.

Getting the shipping right is the unglamorous half of a profitable Q4, and the sellers who survive December are the ones who priced for it in September. The full system for pricing, packing and shipping so the fees do not eat the flip lives inside The Income Lab.

Hero photo by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.