FedEx Corp. announced rate increases for FedEx Express and FedEx Ground customers and a decrease in the fuel surcharge effective Jan. 3.

The announcement came Friday, exactly one week after competitor UPS announced increases.
FedEx Express will boosted package and freight published rates by an average of 4.6 percent for U.S. domestic and export services while lowering its fuel surcharge by 2.0 percentage points. The result should be a net average shipping cost increase of 2.6 percent, according to Fedex.
Standard list rates for FedEx Ground and FedEx Home Delivery will increase an average of 2.9 percent. In addition, FedEx Ground will introduce an indexed fuel surcharge for both U.S. and international FedEx Ground shipments.
Fedex also announced these changes:
-- Surcharges for FedEx Express shipments to locations in select ZIP codes will increase by 25 cents per package. The surcharge for residential locations will be $2 per package, for commercial locations, $1.25 per package.
-- Surcharges for FedEx Ground shipments to locations in select ZIP codes will increase by 25 cents per package. The new surcharge for residential locations will be $2 per package, for commercial locations, $1.25 per package.
-- The surcharge for residential delivery will increase from $1.75 to $2 per package for FedEx Express shipments, from $1.75 to $2 per package for FedEx Ground shipments and from $1.40 to $1.50 per package for FedEx Home Delivery shipments.
-- For FedEx Ground shipments charges for declared value over $100 will increase from $0.35 to $0.40 per $100 and the maximum declared value for a ground package will increase from $25,000 to $50,000 per package. A minimum charge of $1.20 will be implemented for packages with a declared value between $100 and $300.
According to Fedex, the list rates will be available to customers on www.fedex.com beginning Dec. 3, 2004. FedEx Ground list rates will be available on www.fedex.com beginning Dec. 15, 2004.