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While the 2022 USPS rate changes went into effect on January 9 of this year, the additional fees approved by the Postal Regulatory Commission were delayed until Sunday, April 3, 2022. These fees include a Dimensional Noncompliance fee as well as a USPS Non Standard Fee.
While these fees come in just days after April Fools Day, the surcharges are no laughing matter and could significantly impact your shipping costs. These fees are added to the cost of postage and can be combined if you go outside the parameters of multiple rules.
We’ll explain how these new fees affect those who ship with USPS through Shippo and in general, but if you’d like to read more on what exactly the PRC approved in terms of new USPS costs, visit here.
USPS Dimensional Noncompliance Fee
Of the new USPS shipping fees, the Dimensional Noncompliance fee is a bit easier to understand.
A fee of $1.50 will be applied to any packages when manifested dimensions are either incorrect or are not provided and the captured dimensions (length, width, height) have a length greater than 22 inches or volume greater than one cubic foot.
The length is the longest side of the box and should be provided out to two decimal places. Be accurate since the rounding does not apply to Nonstandard Fee for package length.
Then rounding rules apply when calculating package volume. The package dimensions (length, width, and height) should be rounded off to the next whole number, then multiplied to calculate the package cubic volume. If the calculated package cubic volume exceeds 3,456 inches, the Nonstandard Fee for exceeding 2 cubic feet volume applies
To avoid this fee you’ll want to live by the philosophy of “measure twice, ship once”. Just be sure you’re measuring the exterior of the box your product is going to be shipped in since that is what USPS will be measuring.
USPS Non Standard Fee
The USPS Non Standard Fee has a few more layers to unpack. Essentially, packages that exceed a certain dimensional threshold will incur an additional fee in addition to the postage.
Parcels that are longer than 22 inches but less than 30 inches will see a $4.00 surcharge.
Parcels that exceed 30 inches in length will incur a $15.00 surcharge.
Parcels that measure greater than 2 cubic (3456 cubic inches) feet will also see a $15.00 fee added.
These fees are set to be placed on shipments using USPS Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, and Parcel Select. Shipments using Priority Mail Express or Priority Mail Flat Rate packaging, Priority Cubic Tiered product, or Priority Mail Regional Rate packages won’t have to worry about these surcharges. For those Flat Rate USPS provided packages, you simply have to remember “If it fits, it ships for a low flat rate.” Just don’t overstuff the boxes to the point you put your product in danger. For the Cubic Rate, you will need to provide accurate rates rounded to ¼”
What’s also important to understand is that your package could incur multiple non standard fees at the same time.
Say for example you’re sending out a Priority Mail shipment that measures at 25” long, 12” high, and 12” wide. You’d see a $4.00 surcharge for your package being longer than 22” plus you’d see another $15.00 for your package measuring greater than 2 cubic feet. You’d then be paying $19.00 on top of the cost of postage.
In a separate example, let’s say your package was 35” long, 10” high, and 10” wide. You’d pay $15 for your package being longer than 30 inches, plus another $15 for being greater than 2 cubic feet. Let’s also say you didn’t measure it correctly or didn’t measure it at all. That could result in a $31.50 fee to go along with the cost of postage.
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Originally Posted by nicholst55
