Fuel Surcharge Calculation: A Worked Example for Carriers
Fuel surcharge calculation comes down to one formula applied consistently: take the gap between a published diesel price and your contract’s baseline, divide by your truck’s fuel efficiency, and multiply by loaded miles. The hard part isn’t the math. It’s agreeing on the baseline, the index, and the update schedule before the truck leaves the dock. Get those three things wrong and you’ll be re-arguing fuel every settlement cycle. This post walks through both common methods, a worked example you can copy into your own rate sheet, and the mistakes that cost small fleets and brokerages real margin. ...