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The surcharge applies to business account customers, who will pay an extra 5p for letters and 10p for parcels – and this will be in force until January 10, 2025
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Royal Mail has brought back an extra fee for some deliveries ahead of the busy Christmas period.
The surcharge applies to business account customers, who will pay an extra 5p for letters and 10p for parcels. This comes into force from today and will run until January 10, 2025, to cover the peak time for Christmas deliveries. While this is only being applied to business customers, there are fears that consumers could end up paying more if businesses pass on the costs.
On the Royal Mail website, the firm states: “The Peak Surcharge is effective across our busiest time of year as we scale-up our network at additional cost. The Peak Surcharge is applied on the product price after any discounts or commissions or other surcharges, and before VAT.”
A Royal Mail spokesperson said: “The peak surcharge only applies to business customers for the Christmas period and was introduced last year. It applies an additional charge to certain business parcel products for a limited period to reflect the increased demand and capacity needed to handle increased volumes.
“Other parcel carriers apply a similar surcharge. Christmas is our busiest time of the year and we invest in around 16,000 additional staff, more vehicles and temporary sites to increase our capacity to handle double the normal volumes of parcels.”
The 5p peak surcharge is being applied to Royal Mail 24 and Royal Mail 48 large letters, plus Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 letterboxable products sent by business account holders. The 10p peak surcharge will apply to Royal Mail 24 and Royal Mail 48 parcels, Royal Mail Tracked 24 and Royal Mail Tracked 48 Parcels, Royal Mail Tracked Returns, Royal Mail Special Delivery Guaranteed by 9am, 1pm and end of the day Sunday, and Special Delivery Guaranteed Returns.
It comes after Royal Mail hiked the price of stamps again last month. The price of a standard first-class stamp increased from £1.35 to £1.65 – up 30p, or 22% – as of October 7. The cost of a large first-class stamp rose from £2.10 to £2.60 – up 50p, or 24%.
Royal Mail said the increase is down to a decline in the number of letters being sent. The price of stamps has been steadily increasing over the last few years. A standard first-class stamp rose from £1.10 to £1.25 in October 2023, then to £1.35 in April 2024.
There was no change to the price of second-class stamps, which cost 85p for a standard second-class stamp, and £1.55 for a larger second-class stamp. It comes after Royal Mail replaced traditional stamps with ones that feature barcodes.
The only stamps you can continue to use are “special stamps” issued to commemorate anniversaries and events, as well as Christmas stamps. If you still have some old stamps, you can exchange them through the Royal Mail “Swap Out” scheme.
To do this, download a “Swap Out” form on the Royal Mail website, call up Royal Mail on 03457 740740, or pick up a form from your local Post Office. If you’re downloading the form online and you don’t have access to a printer, you can complete a web form and request for it to be posted to you.
