The U.S. Postal Service (U.S.PS) has announced its first-ever fuel surcharge on packages to offset rising energy costs, having filed notice March 25 with the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC).

The Guardian reports the surcharge, set at 8%, is expected to take effect on April 26 and remain in place until January 17, 2027, under the current plan.

Packages under Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, U.S.PS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select will be affected by the surcharge.

“Transportation costs have been increasing, and our competitors have reacted with a number of surcharges,” reads the statement by the USPS. “We have steadfastly avoided surcharges and this charge is less than one-third of what our competitors charge for fuel alone, so even with this change, the Postal Service continues to offer great value in shipping with some of the lowest rates in the industrialized world.”

Oil prices have jumped dramatically since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran on February 28, with the cost of crude oil per barrel up by as much as 40% since the beginning of 2026, causing spikes in the price consumers pay at the gas pump.

Inevitably, the move raised criticism from Democratic politicians.

“Groceries. Gas. Now packages. Is there anything Donald Trump hasn’t made more expensive? Call it what it is: the Trump Mail Tax,” said JB Pritzker, the Democrat governor of Illinois, in a post on social media. “Trump has messed up on affordability so badly that he’s even managed to make the mail more expensive,” the U.S. Democrat senator Raphael Warnock said in a post.

The news comes on top of a seemingly endless parade of woes for the government-owned, quasi-independent, delivery service, mandated to "run like a business" under the 1970 the Postal Reorganization Act, while still being obliged to provide six-day service to any address in the country. The USPS essentially missed the boat on capitalizing on the massive increase in parcel home-delivery volumes created by online shopping that started in the late 90s, and has lost money almost every fiscal year since 2007, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office. In a 2018 official statement, then-Postmaster General and CEO Megan J. Brennan said its financial woes were due to “the flawed business model imposed by law.”  These include union and pension obligations, but many point to poor management and a lack of capital investment in equipment to handle parcels rather than letters.

Read More: Amazon Becomes the Largest Parcel Carrier in the U.S.

Earlier in March, postmaster general David Steiner said the agency is poised to run out of funds within the next year unless Congress agrees to allow it to borrow more money.

“Less than a year from now, the Postal Service will be unable to deliver the mail if we maintain the status quo,” Steiner told lawmakers.