Royal Mail parcel prices rose on 5 October. Franked prices did not.
What changed for stamps, for business account customers and for franking, with the tables and the break-even on each way round it.
Pricing
Three surcharges sit on every Royal Mail business parcel, and the peak one is the smallest
The peak surcharge starts on 2 November and is 15p to 22p on a parcel. The fuel surcharge is 16 per cent and has been since May. On a Royal Mail 24 parcel that is 97p. Here is all of it, with the rates Royal Mail publishes and the arithmetic on a real parcel.
Every October the same charge gets written about: the Royal Mail peak surcharge, which this year runs from 2 November 2026 to 10 January 2027. It is real, and on a parcel it is between 15p and 22p.
It is also, on most accounts, the smallest of the charges sitting on top of your postage. The fuel and energy surcharge is 16 per cent and has been since May. On a Royal Mail 24 parcel at the October account price that is 97p, more than four times the peak surcharge, and it does not go away in January.
Everything below is read off Royal Mail’s own surcharges page on 11 October 2026. It is worth saying plainly, because we got this wrong ourselves: Royal Mail does publish its peak surcharge rates, per item, by product. They are not a secret held in your contract. They are in a table most sellers never find, because it sits inside a collapsed section on a page nobody links to.
The short version: fuel is 16 per cent, green is 5p an item, and peak is 10p to 30p an item from 2 November to 10 January. On a £6.05 Royal Mail 24 parcel that is £1.24 of surcharge, and the peak part of it is 22p. Shipping abroad, the international surcharge went from 6.5 per cent to 12 per cent in May.
The three that apply to every account parcel
| Surcharge | Rate | Since | Applies to |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel and energy | 16% of the product price | 3 May 2026 | Royal Mail 24 and 48, Tracked 24 and 48, Special Delivery Guaranteed, and the returns services |
| Green | 5p per item | 31 March 2025 | The same list, plus all Parcelforce Worldwide services |
| Peak | 10p to 30p per item | 2 Nov 2026 to 10 Jan 2027 | Rates by product, in the table further down |
Two things are easy to miss. The fuel surcharge is applied to the product price after your discounts, so a well negotiated rate reduces the surcharge with it. And Parcelforce Worldwide moved from 13 per cent to 16 per cent on 5 October 2026, the same day the parcel prices rose, so a Parcelforce account took two increases at once.
None of the three apply to stamps, Click & Drop at retail prices, or anything inside the universal service obligation. Royal Mail says so explicitly for each one. These are business account charges.
What that adds to a real parcel
Using the account prices that took effect on 5 October, which we set out in full in what changed on 5 October, and adding the three surcharges in the order Royal Mail applies them.
| Account parcel, up to 2kg | Price | Fuel 16% | Green | Peak | Billed in peak |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Royal Mail 48 parcel | £4.30 | £0.69 | £0.05 | £0.15 | £5.19 |
| Royal Mail 24 parcel | £6.05 | £0.97 | £0.05 | £0.22 | £7.29 |
On the 48 hour service that is 89p of surcharge on a £4.30 parcel, about 21 per cent. On the 24 hour service it is £1.24 on £6.05, about the same proportion. In both cases the peak surcharge is under a fifth of the surcharge load and the fuel surcharge is roughly three quarters of it.
What gets written about
- Peak surcharge, 22p, for ten weeks of the year
- Announced every autumn, and it ends on 10 January
What you actually pay
- Fuel and energy, 97p, every parcel, all year
- Green, 5p, every parcel, all year
- Peak, 22p, for ten weeks
- Total £1.24 on a £6.05 parcel
The peak surcharge, in full
These are Royal Mail’s published rates for 2 November 2026 to 10 January 2027 inclusive, per item, applied after discounts and before VAT.
| Charge | Products |
|---|---|
| £0.10 | Royal Mail 48 large letters; Tracked 48 letterboxable |
| £0.15 | Royal Mail 24 large letters; Tracked 24 letterboxable; Royal Mail 48 parcels; Tracked 48 parcels; Tracked 48 Returns |
| £0.22 | Royal Mail 24 parcels; Tracked 24 parcels; Tracked 24 Returns |
| £0.25 | Special Delivery Guaranteed by Next Day; Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns; Express 24; Express 48; Express24 and Express48 Returns |
| £0.30 | Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am and by 1pm; Express 10am; Express Noon |
| £5.00 | Express48 Large |
The £5.00 line is not a typo. Express48 Large carries a peak surcharge more than twenty times the next highest rate, so if any of your Q4 volume goes out on it, that is the single line worth modelling before November.
Shipping abroad? That surcharge nearly doubled in May
This is the change almost nobody noticed. Royal Mail’s international surcharge went from 6.5 per cent to 12 per cent on 3 May 2026, which Royal Mail attributes to increasing fuel costs. It applies to International Business Tracked, Tracked & Signed, Signed, Standard, Mail and Parcels, and to the Parcelforce international services.
On top of that, a separate international peak surcharge runs on the same dates as the domestic one: 10p on international large letters across the Tracked, Tracked & Signed, Signed and Standard services, and 15p on international parcels.
If a meaningful share of your orders go to the EU, read that next to the duty and handling changes in shipping to the EU from a UK warehouse, because they land on the same parcels.
The charges that only appear when something goes wrong
These are not on every parcel, which is exactly why they are the ones that produce a surprising invoice.
| Charge | Amount | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Manual handling | £4.15 per item | New on 5 October 2026. Parcelforce Worldwide items meeting the manual handling criteria for product, packaging and size |
| Parcelshop misuse | £10.00 plus £1.25 admin | Since 3 August 2026, per business account Tracked item incorrectly presented at a Parcelshop |
| Return to sender | £1.50 to £3.50 per item | Uncollected after the 18 day holding period, bad address, gone away or refused. £3.50 on a Royal Mail 24 parcel, £2.50 on a Royal Mail 48 parcel |
| Cancelled collection | £250 plus VAT | Per collection, on accounts that forecast daily and have a dedicated vehicle |
| Underutilised collection | £125 plus VAT | Per reporting incident, where actual volume is under half the forecast |
| Tracked Returns retention | £1.00 admin plus £20.00 per container per day | Where you ask Royal Mail to hold containers beyond the scheduled delivery date |
The two collection charges are worth reading twice if you forecast volumes to an account team. A quiet week after an optimistic forecast is a £125 charge, and cancelling a booked collection is £250. In a peak where everyone is guessing at volume, those are easy to trigger.
Return to sender is the one that catches growing sellers, because it scales with bad address data rather than with care. If your undeliverable rate is one in two hundred and you send 4,000 parcels in December, that is twenty returns at up to £3.50 before you have handled or refunded anything. What a returned order really costs is in what a return actually costs.
What to do with this before November
- Check which column you are in. If you buy postage at retail prices rather than on an account, none of the three main surcharges apply to you separately. If you are on an account, all three do.
- Work out your fuel surcharge in pounds, not per cent. Sixteen per cent of your monthly postage is a real number and it is almost certainly larger than anything peak will add.
- Find your Express48 Large volume, if any. The £5.00 peak rate on that one service is the biggest single line in the table.
- Fix addresses before December, not after. Return to sender charges are avoidable and they arrive with the January invoice.
- Be careful what you forecast if you have a dedicated collection, because under-forecasting and over-forecasting both carry a charge.
Where we sit on this
We buy at account rates and we are paying the same three surcharges on every parcel we send for a client. What we do differently is publish our own peak charge rather than leave it to the invoice: 20p per order in November and December, on the rate card, shown on every quote. The number agreed in September is the number that applies in December.
Postage itself we cannot make cheaper than the carriers make it. What a fulfilment partner can do is buy on account rates you may not reach on your own volume, keep the cut-off steady through December, and tell you what a peak order costs before the season rather than after it. The whole Q4 picture, dates included, is in every date between now and January that changes what a parcel costs.
Royal Mail surcharges, answered
How much is the Royal Mail peak surcharge in 2026?
Royal Mail publishes the rates, per item, on its own surcharges page. From 2 November 2026 to 10 January 2027 inclusive they are 10p on Royal Mail 48 large letters and Tracked 48 letterboxable, 15p on Royal Mail 24 large letters, Tracked 24 letterboxable, Royal Mail 48 parcels and Tracked 48 parcels, 22p on Royal Mail 24 parcels and Tracked 24 parcels, 25p on Special Delivery Guaranteed by Next Day and the Express 24 and 48 services, 30p on Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am and 1pm, and £5.00 on Express48 Large.
What is the Royal Mail fuel surcharge in 2026?
16 per cent, effective from 3 May 2026, applied to the product price after any discounts and before VAT. It covers Royal Mail 24 and 48, Tracked 24 and 48, Special Delivery Guaranteed and the returns services. Parcelforce Worldwide charged 13 per cent and moved to 16 per cent on 5 October 2026. On most parcels this is a far bigger number than the peak surcharge.
Do Royal Mail surcharges apply to stamps and Click & Drop?
No. Royal Mail states that the fuel, green and peak surcharges do not apply to non-contract business and consumer parcel services, or to anything inside the universal service obligation. They are business account charges. If you buy postage at retail prices you are not paying them separately, though the retail prices themselves rose on 5 October 2026.
How much did Royal Mail’s international surcharge go up in 2026?
From 6.5 per cent to 12 per cent, effective 3 May 2026, which Royal Mail attributes to increasing fuel costs. It applies to the International Business Tracked, Signed, Standard, Mail and Parcels services and to the Parcelforce international services. A separate international peak surcharge of 10p on large letters and 15p on parcels runs from 2 November 2026 to 10 January 2027.
What is the Parcelforce manual handling surcharge?
£4.15 per item, introduced on 5 October 2026, which may apply to Parcelforce Worldwide items that meet the manual handling criteria on the Parcelforce packaging page for product, packaging and size. Royal Mail says its application may take account of contractual arrangements and agreed thresholds, so it can vary by customer.
Sources: every rate above is from Royal Mail’s surcharges and correction charges page, read on 11 October 2026. The figures sit inside collapsed sections on that page, which is part of why they are so little quoted. Royal Mail says it will give at least 14 days’ notice of a fuel surcharge change and at least 30 days’ notice of a green or peak change, on that same page, so it is the one to check rather than any summary including this one. Base parcel prices are the 5 October 2026 account prices set out in our own price increase article.
We previously wrote that Royal Mail did not publish a single peak surcharge and that the rate sat in your contract. That was wrong, and the Q4 cost calendar has been corrected to match this page.
If you want your own postage run against these numbers, send us your volumes, services and parcel sizes and we will price November and December with the surcharges included. Ask for a quote and we will come back in one working day.
Keep reading
More from the floor
Pricing
Peak
Every date between now and January that changes what a parcel costs
The full Q4 calendar: the October rise, the peak surcharge, the EU charges and what each does to a real month.
Want your postage costed with the surcharges in?
Send us your volumes, services and parcel sizes. We will price November and December with fuel, green and peak included, in one working day.
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