Fuel surcharge
Also called FSC
A fuel surcharge is a separate per-mile charge added to the line haul rate to offset diesel price movement, usually indexed to a published national or regional average.
Last reviewed · by the Fleetchart team
Fuel surcharge exists so that neither party has to renegotiate the base rate every time diesel moves. The surcharge is typically tied to a published index and expressed as cents per mile, recalculated weekly.
For a carrier the practical question is whether the surcharge actually covers the fuel burned. That depends on your truck's real fuel economy and the miles you run empty as well as loaded — surcharge is usually paid on loaded miles only, while deadhead burns fuel that nothing reimburses.
Tracking fuel spend against fuel surcharge received, load by load, is one of the fastest ways to find out whether a lane is as good as it looks.
Say a load runs 1,000 loaded miles with a $0.50 per mile surcharge, so the surcharge pays 1,000 × $0.50 = $500. The truck drove 200 empty miles to reach it, so it turns 1,200 miles. At 6 mpg that is 1,200 ÷ 6 = 200 gallons, and at $4.20 a gallon the fuel bill is 200 × $4.20 = $840. The surcharge covers $500 of it, and the other $340 comes out of the line haul.
That gap is part of your cost per mile whether you track it or not.