Operations
Freight Accessorial Charges: The Menu That Lives Outside Linehaul
Accessorials are not a broker tax. They are driver hours and equipment the linehaul never bought. List the facility facts or pay them later.
Updated 2026-08-20 · freight accessorial charges
Freight accessorial charges are the tariff lines for work the linehaul rate did not buy: a liftgate because there is no dock, an extra stop because purchasing added a consignee, detention because the warehouse ran long, limited access because the site is a mall, school, or military gate. They feel like nickel-and-diming only when nobody named the facility on the RFQ.
COL Freight Solutions quotes FTL and LTL with those extras visible when the addresses imply them. Licensed property broker, USDOT 4427559, MC-1741651. Send the dock story with the dims: shipping@colfreightsolutions.com · 561-880-9808.
The freight accessorial charges you will see most often
Liftgate, inside delivery, residential, limited access, appointment, extra labor, lumper, extra stop, redelivery, reconsignment, layover, and detention after free time. LTL adds reweigh and reclass when the terminal disagrees with the BOL. None of these are fuel, and none of them disappear because the sales email said “all in” without listing them.
Detention is a clock, not a mood
Free time is usually a stated number of hours for live load or unload. When the driver is past that, detention starts. The cure is operational: appointments that match labor, product staged before the tractor arrives, and a dock that does not use the trailer as free storage. Argue the clock with timestamps, not with adjectives.
How to keep accessorials off the surprise column
Write facility type on both ends. If the U.S. receiver is a club store, say so. If the Mexican patio has no dock plates, say so. Cross-border dwell is its own species of delay; do not label it liftgate.
- Photograph the dock or the lack of one.
- State extra stops as new work, not a favor.
- Ask whether FSC applies to accessorials on LTL.
Quote them, then manage them
COL Freight will put likely freight accessorial charges on the quote when your addresses shout them. Recurring shippers who tighten dock clocks often see the stack shrink more than they would by beating linehaul another round. After the operational quote, ask about the Transportation Cost Recovery Program™ if volume is consistent.
