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Every year, Q4 turns into a battlefield of promotions, deliveries, and customer expectations. While Black Week and Christmas bring in record sales, they also come with a less glamorous reality: peak season surcharges.
Carriers add these temporary fees to balance network strain. For e-commerce merchants, this means that the timing of your campaigns is as important as the discounts you offer. Our data shows a clear picture: Many merchants are already reacting smartly by stretching promotions across a longer timeframe or kicking off holiday deals earlier in November or even October. The aim? To avoid both logistical bottlenecks and extra fees.
This overview of surcharges in Germany, Austria, the UK, and France helps you decide: do you go head-to-head in peak weeks, or shift campaigns to optimize costs?
Peak Season Surcharges 2025 per Country
Peak Season Surcharges in Germany
In Germany, surcharges concentrate mostly around November and December, when order volumes are at their highest. DHL and DHL Express apply multiple layers of fees: a €0.50 per parcel “Peak-on-Peak” surcharge between November 27th and December 7th. Interestingly, for DHL Express, an additional 10 cents per parcel for domestic shipments and additional surcharges depending on destination, apply already from October 1st until February 16th.
GLS also adds €0.50 per parcel as a so-called BlackWeek surcharge (November 24th to December 5th). Asendia extends its surcharge for the entire holiday season and beyond, charging €0.40 per parcel on international shipments from November 1st until January 31st.
Peak Season Surcharges in Austria
In Austria, many of the same rules as in Germany apply, particularly for carriers like DHL Express, which adds a €0.10 per parcel demand surcharge on national shipments and a zone-based surcharge for international parcels between October 1st and February 16th, as well as the DHL peak-on-peak surcharges and the GLS Blackweek surcharge. These extended windows mean Austrian merchants face similar challenges when planning holiday campaigns. However, for the national postal operator Post AT, no clear indication of specific peak season surcharges could be found (yet).
Peak Season Surcharges in the UK
In the UK, peak season surcharges last nearly two full months. Both Royal Mail and Parcelforce apply them from November 17th until January 9th. Royal Mail’s fee is relatively modest — £0.07 for large letters and £0.12 for standard parcels. Parcelforce, however, applies a broader range: £0.20 per parcel for most services, but up to £4.50 for Express Large shipments. For UK merchants, this makes campaign timing especially relevant: moving promotional pushes to early November can avoid the surcharge-heavy period.
Peak Season Surcharges in France
Unlike Germany, Austria, or the UK, no official “peak season surcharge” has been published by the major carriers in France (La Poste/Colissimo, Chronopost, GLS France, DPD France).
Smart Timing as a Business Strategy
For merchants, peak season surcharges don’t just raise costs; they also highlight the importance of when you run your campaigns. Launching promotions at the same time as everyone else (Black Week and Cyber Monday) may maximize short-term visibility, but it also exposes you to the steepest surcharges and the heaviest strain on delivery networks.
Working with hundreds of e-commerce merchants, our internal data shows that the Black Week period is losing relative importance compared to the rest of Q4. Back in 2019, nearly 10% of Q4 order volume fell within the Black Friday/Cyber Monday window. Since then, that share has steadily declined, reaching around 7% in 2023 and 2024.
This means that more and more merchants are spreading promotions across a longer timeframe, starting earlier in November or even October. By doing so, they not only avoid the surcharge-heavy late November days but also ensure faster deliveries, fewer bottlenecks, and a smoother experience for online shoppers.
Share of BF/CM order volume compared to Q4 volumes, byrd data & illustration
Key Takeaways
Peak season surcharges are here to stay. But the smartest merchants don’t just absorb them; they design campaign calendars around them.
- In Germany & Austria, watch DHL and DHL Express move first, introducing peak surcharges partly already in the beginning of October, followed by other surcharges starting from November and an additional peak-on-peak surcharge closer to the Black Week. Similarly, Asendia’s and GLS’s surcharges, in beginning and late November respectively and can last into February.
- In the UK, surcharges cover nearly two months (mid-November until early/mid-January), making early-November promotions especially attractive.
- In France, no explicit surcharges yet.
Map these surcharges in your marketing calendar and think about whether this could help your business maximize sales while keeping your shipping costs as low as possible. Once you have already thought about that, reconsidering your fulfillment setup could make sense as well. If you do so, talk to our experts to find a solution that best fits your needs.