What is the holiday shipping surcharge, and does it affect my orders?

Every year, during the holiday season, major US shipping carriers, such as USPS, add temporary surcharges to manage higher order volumes and extra handling. To keep up with these annual changes, we’re adding a 0.40 USD shipping surcharge to all orders with a US destination address again this year, just like we did last holiday season. This is a standard industry-wide adjustment, not a permanent price change.

Key details

The surcharge is active from October 15, 2026, to January 17, 2027.

Applies to all shipping methods
A 0.40 USD fee per order is added
Applies only to orders with a US destination address

If your order includes multiple shipments or products from different categories, the surcharge will still be applied just once per order.

Note

Sales tax will apply to the surcharge in US states where shipping is taxable. The tax is calculated from the product price, shipping cost (including surcharge), and any additional services. Shipping discounts and coupons don’t apply to this surcharge, except for sample orders that qualify for free shipping.

How to pass the surcharge to your customers

If you sell to US-based customers, we suggest adjusting your product or shipping prices to help cover the added cost. You can do this manually or enable it through settings—depending on your platform.

The surcharge is added in the shipping section of the order, and if you’ve been selling with us for more than a year, this is the same approach we used last holiday season.

Enable the surcharge from your Dashboard (if available)

If you use Shopify with Printful flat rates or other integrations with Printful’s live shipping rates, you can automatically pass the surcharge to your customers if you enable it in your Printful Dashboard:

Go to Dashboard → Settings → Store settings → Shipping
Find Temporary shipping surcharges
Tick the box next to Add surcharges to shipping prices on my storefront

This setting works for:

Shopify stores using flat rates
Stores using live shipping rates, including:
- Shopify (Advanced and Plus plans, or Grow plan with Carrier Calculated Shipping enabled)
- WooCommerce
- Ecwid by Lightspeed (Venture, Business, or Unlimited plans)
- Custom stores using the Printful API

For all of these, the surcharge will only be included in your storefront shipping prices if you enable the setting in the Dashboard.

Etsy

The automatic surcharge setting won’t apply to Etsy this year. If you sell on Etsy, you’ll need to manually adjust your shipping profiles to account for the USD 0.40 fee.

For other platforms or custom setups

If you’re using a different integration or a custom shipping strategy, you may need to manually update your rates. Check out specific guides for:

Still need help? Our Support Team is here for you—reach out anytime through our contact form or start a chat with us.