On an owner-operator settlement, the fuel surcharge line is the part of a fuel-cost recovery that your lease passes to you. The shipper or broker usually pays the carrier a surcharge on the freight bill; whether any of it reaches you, and whether you get all of it, a stated share or a separate carrier-set amount, is a term of your lease rather than a rule of trucking. On the statement the line belongs with the accessorials, tied to a load number, with the method, index week and miles printed beside it. To check it, read the surcharge clause, confirm every load carries the line, confirm it used the week and the miles the clause names, and on a pass-through or percentage lease compare it with what the customer was billed. In the United States a leased owner-operator paid a percentage of gross revenue has a federal right to the rated freight bill that shows it. Recomputing the formula is a calculator job; this page is about the statement.
Two surcharges with one name: the customer’s and yours
Most freight carries two different fuel surcharges, and settlement confusion starts when they are treated as one. The first is the customer surcharge: the amount the carrier bills the shipper or broker on top of the linehaul rate, under the rate confirmation or the carrier’s tariff. The second is the settlement surcharge: the amount, if any, the carrier pays you for the same load under your lease. They are linked only by contract. The customer surcharge is carrier revenue; the settlement surcharge is your compensation.
The lease can link them in several ways. A full pass-through pays you the surcharge the customer paid on that load. A share pays you a stated portion of it. A carrier programme pays you its own surcharge from its own table, whatever the customer was billed. Some leases fold fuel into an all-in rate and pay no separate surcharge at all. Each of those is legitimate when the lease says so, and none of them can be read off a statement that prints one unexplained number.
Employee drivers are a different case. A company driver paid wages or by the mile is not buying the fuel, so there is normally nothing for a surcharge to recover on a pay stub. When a surcharge line appears on a driver’s pay, the first question is usually classification, which the owner-operator versus employee guides in this set cover.
Who keeps the surcharge: read the clause, not the line
Start with the compensation clause and any fuel addendum. It has to answer five things: whether a surcharge is payable to you at all; whether it is a pass-through, a share or a carrier table; which miles it is paid on (loaded, all dispatched, or the same basis as linehaul); which date picks the index week (pickup, delivery, or a fixed table period); and, on percentage pay, whether it sits inside the percentage base or is paid on top. If the clause is silent on one of those, resolve that gap in writing before you dispute any line.
In the United States, an owner-operator who leases equipment to an authorised for-hire carrier has federal rules behind those answers. Under 49 CFR 376.12, paragraph (d), the amount the carrier pays for equipment and driver services must be clearly stated on the lease or an addendum delivered before the trip begins. Under paragraph (g), when you are paid a percentage of the gross revenue for a shipment, the lease must require the carrier to give you a copy of the rated freight bill before or at settlement, and must let you examine the tariff or contract the rates are computed from. The truth-in-leasing guide in this set covers the rest of that part.
Canada has no federal analogue that sets the content of an owner-operator lease, so the agreement you signed is usually the whole answer. One regulated exception is container drayage at the Port of Vancouver: the province gave the BC container trucking commissioner authority to set rates and fuel surcharges from July 2019 (BC government release), and the Office of the BC Container Trucking Commissioner publishes the surcharge month by month against a Vancouver diesel reference price. If you haul under that licence system, check the settlement against the published month rather than a carrier table.
Where the line sits and what it should print
The surcharge is an earning, so on the statement it belongs in the accessorial block with detention, layover and stop-off: not inside the linehaul row and not in the deduction column. The how-to-read guide in this set covers that layout. A surcharge buried in the linehaul figure, or netted against the fuel-card deduction, cannot be checked.
A readable line carries the load number it belongs to, the method (pass-through, share, or carrier table and its period), the index name and week where the method uses one, the miles it was applied to, and the amount. That is a documentation standard, not a demand for the carrier’s whole formula on every row: a table reference and its period are enough when the lease adopts the table.
A zero line can be correct. When the published index sits at or below the level where the programme starts paying, a computed zero is a real result, and a zero with its inputs printed is auditable. A load with no surcharge line at all is a different fact: the line was never built, and the accessorial guide in this set covers how to chase a line that should exist and does not.
Inside the percentage or on top of it
On per-mile and flat-rate statements the surcharge normally prints as its own line. On percentage pay there is a further question: is the surcharge part of the gross the percentage is taken from, or is it paid separately, in full or in a stated share? Both arrangements are common, and the percentage-pay guide in this set covers the base in full.
The two read differently. If the surcharge is inside the base, a higher customer surcharge raises your percentage line and there may be no separate fuel row. If it is paid on top, the percentage line moves only with linehaul and the fuel row moves on its own. A statement that prints a separate fuel row and also takes the percentage of a gross that includes the customer surcharge is paying it twice unless the lease says so; one that shows neither may not be paying it at all.
For a US percentage lease the rated freight bill settles the question, because it shows the charges the customer was billed, so you can see which figure your percentage was taken from and whether the surcharge was in it.
Checking the line against the lease, one period at a time
Work one settlement period at a time, with the lease clause, the statement, your trip sheets or ELD mileage, and for percentage pay the rated freight bills. First, list every load on the statement and confirm each one has a surcharge line or a stated reason it does not. A load with linehaul and no surcharge is the most common gap, and it is easier to catch than a wrong amount.
Second, confirm the inputs match the clause: the index week, the date it keyed to, and the miles. Loaded-only versus all-mile is the biggest single swing, and a surcharge paid on a different mileage basis from linehaul will never match a check that uses one figure for both. Third, recompute the line from the inputs the clause names. The arithmetic is the same index, peg and divisor formula used on the customer side, and the fuel surcharge calculator on truckerpro.ca does it, so this page does not repeat it.
Fourth, on a pass-through or share lease, compare the line with what the customer paid on that load: the rated freight bill in a US percentage lease, and elsewhere a written request for the surcharge the customer was billed. Fifth, keep a running log of index week, miles and amount per load. A line that never moves while the published index does, or that changes method without notice, only shows up across several periods.
Patterns that point at a problem
The same surcharge on every load for weeks while the published index moved. Either the carrier table has not rolled or the line is a placeholder that is not computing. Ask which, and get the table and its period in writing.
A surcharge paid on loaded miles when the clause says dispatched miles, or keyed to the delivery week when the clause says pickup week. These are input errors, and checking the multiplication will never reveal them.
A surcharge share applied after deductions, or the surcharge netted into the fuel-card recovery. The surcharge is an earning and the fuel-card draw is an advance against your own purchases, so they belong in different blocks; the advances and fuel cards guide covers the recovery side.
A surcharge that vanishes on the final settlement when a lease ends. The last loads earn the surcharge like any other, and the final-settlement guide in this set covers what the close-out should contain.
The pump price, IFTA and GST/HST are other lines
What you paid at the pump is a cost; the surcharge is a contractual recovery keyed to a published index or a table. They are not meant to match, and a week in which you paid more than the index is not evidence that the surcharge is short. The evidence is a clause, applied to the named week and miles, that does not produce the printed line.
IFTA is a jurisdictional fuel-tax reconciliation, usually recovered or credited as a separate true-up, and the IFTA guide in this set covers it. In Canada the surcharge is part of what you are paid for the freight movement, so GST/HST on it generally follows the treatment of that movement, which the GST/HST guide covers.
When the inputs are named and the line is still short, you have a pay shortage. Put the load numbers, the clause and your recomputation in writing, and follow the escalation sequence in the pay-shortage guide.
FAQ
Does the carrier have to pass the fuel surcharge to an owner-operator?
Only if the lease says so. The surcharge a shipper pays is carrier revenue, and the lease decides whether you receive all of it, a share, a separate carrier-set surcharge, or nothing because fuel is built into your rate. In the United States a leased owner-operator’s compensation must be clearly stated in the lease under 49 CFR 376.12(d). In Canada the agreement governs, apart from regulated cases such as licensed container drayage at the Port of Vancouver.
Where should the fuel surcharge appear on my settlement?
In the accessorial block, as an earning tied to a load number, with the method, index week and miles beside it. Not inside the linehaul figure, and not netted against the fuel-card deduction.
Can I see what the customer paid in fuel surcharge?
In the United States, if you lease equipment to an authorised carrier and are paid a percentage of gross revenue, the lease must give you a copy of the rated freight bill before or at settlement and let you examine the tariff or contract the rates come from. Outside that case, ask in writing; whether you are entitled to see it depends on your agreement.
Why is my fuel surcharge different from what I paid for diesel?
Because the surcharge keys to a published index for a named week, or to a carrier table, not to your pump price. The two are not supposed to match. Check the line against the clause in your lease, not against your fuel receipts.
Is fuel surcharge paid on empty miles?
Only if the lease says so. Some pay on loaded miles only, some on all dispatched miles, and some on the same mileage basis as linehaul. The statement should name the miles; if it does not, ask, because that single fact moves the line more than anything else.
A zero fuel surcharge — is that an error?
Not if the index is at or below the level where the programme starts paying and the statement names those inputs. A computed zero is a real result. A load with no surcharge line at all is the different problem of an accessorial that was never built.
Is the fuel surcharge the same as the IFTA line?
No. The surcharge recovers diesel-cost movement under the lease or the customer tariff. IFTA is a jurisdictional fuel-tax reconciliation. Both can appear on one statement and they are checked against different documents.
Related guides
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