Here is the short version of the accessorial charges list every freight desk needs: about twenty charge types show up on truckload and LTL invoices with any regularity, each one asserts that a specific condition existed at the shipment, and each one is settled by a specific document. Liftgate is settled by the bill of lading. Detention is settled by timestamps. Lumper is settled by a receipt. TONU is settled by the cancellation timestamp on the rate confirmation.
Most published accessorial lists stop at the definition. That is the part you already know by the third month on an audit desk. What you actually need at 4pm on a Thursday, with an invoice open and a carrier waiting, is the answer to a narrower question: what piece of paper decides this line, and who is supposed to produce it.
This reference is built around that question. Definitions are short. The document column is the point.
What an accessorial charge actually is
An accessorial is a charge for something other than moving the freight from A to B. Linehaul buys the miles. Everything else is an accessorial: waiting, equipment, extra labor, extra stops, extra handling, extra risk.
The practitioner taxonomy most carriers and brokers work from runs to roughly twenty charge types. The top 20 accessorial charges as commonly catalogued covers liftgate, redelivery, layover, reclassification and reweigh, advance notification, limited access, lumper and driver load/unload, residential, inside delivery, metro pickup and delivery, fuel surcharge, oversized and overlength, sort and segregate, hazardous materials, after-hour delivery, TONU, diversion miles, additional stops, storage, and detention. That taxonomy publishes no dollar ranges, and neither will we. Accessorial pricing is contractual and varies enormously by carrier, lane, and mode, so any single number you see quoted as “the” rate is somebody’s average, not your agreement.
One thing to be clear about before the list, because it is the error we see most often in dispute letters: whether an accessorial is owed is almost always a contract question, not a regulatory one. There is no federal rule saying a carrier cannot bill a liftgate, or capping what a lumper costs, or requiring detention to be paid at all. What binds a carrier is the rate confirmation, the transportation agreement, and any rules tariff that agreement incorporates by reference. Regulation gives you a small number of real, useful rights (a legible itemized bill, deadlines, an overcharge claim process) and it is worth knowing exactly where those end.
What regulation actually gives you
Three rules do real work on accessorial disputes. Everything else is your contract.
You are entitled to an itemized bill. Under 49 CFR 373.103, a freight or expense bill must show consignor and consignee names, shipment date, origin and destination, package count, freight description, weight or volume, the exact rates assessed, and the total charges due with the nature and amount of each charge, plus route, participating carriers, transfer points, and remittance address. A line reading “ACC 145.00” with no description is defective on its face. Asking for itemization under this section is a reasonable, sourced request. It gets you a described charge, not a removed one.
Late-appearing charges have a deadline. Under 49 U.S.C. 13710, a carrier billing charges additional to those originally billed must do so within 180 days of your receipt of the original bill to preserve its collection rights, and you have 180 days from receipt to contest a bill and preserve your right to challenge it. An accessorial that shows up on a rebill five months after a clean original invoice has a timing problem on top of an evidence problem. The rest of these clocks are laid out in every freight billing deadline that can cost you money.
Already-paid accessorials become overcharge claims. Once you have paid, a dispute converts into an overcharge claim. Under 49 CFR 378.8, the processing carrier must pay, decline, or settle a written overcharge claim within 60 days of receipt unless you agree in writing to extend for extenuating circumstances. And under 49 CFR 378.4, the claim must come with the freight bill, the rate or tariff authority you are relying on, and payment information, though inadequate documentation alone cannot disqualify a claim.
That is the whole regulatory toolkit for accessorials. Note what is missing: nothing here says a carrier must prove the service happened before billing it. That proof obligation comes from your contract, if you put it there.
The reference: charge, condition, and the document that settles it
Read each row as a procedure. Name the condition the charge asserts. Find the document that describes that condition on this shipment. Then check the rate confirmation for authorization. A factual contradiction plus a contractual silence is a dispute you win.
| Charge | What it asserts | Document that settles it | Where it usually goes wrong |
|---|---|---|---|
| Detention (loading or unloading) | Driver waited past contracted free time | POD or BOL with in/out timestamps, gate log, ELD or geofence record | No timestamps on the POD; free time clock started at the wrong event |
| Layover | Driver was held overnight and could not run | Dispatch record, appointment time versus arrival, driver log | Billed where the delay was under the layover threshold in the contract |
| TONU | Load was cancelled after dispatch | Rate confirmation, cancellation message with timestamp, dispatch record | No dispatch actually occurred, or cancellation preceded the contractual cutoff |
| Lumper | Third-party labor unloaded the freight | Lumper receipt naming facility, date, amount, and payer | Receipt missing, illegible, or the shipper already paid it directly |
| Driver load or unload | Driver performed labor a facility normally does | Signed delivery receipt or BOL notation; facility policy | Billed alongside lumper for the same unload |
| Liftgate | No dock or ramp at the stop | BOL delivery address and special instructions | Billed on a dock-to-dock move from a billing-stage guess |
| Inside delivery | Driver carried freight past the threshold | BOL instructions; signed delivery receipt | Auto-added with liftgate when only one service happened |
| Residential delivery | Address is a residence | BOL consignee address; business registration | Commercial address in a mixed-use zone flagged by an address classifier |
| Limited access | Site matches a tariff-listed category | BOL consignee checked against the carrier’s own tariff list | Site type not in the tariff’s enumerated categories |
| Appointment or notification | Carrier had to call ahead or book a window | BOL instructions; rate con accessorial section | Billed where standing delivery hours meant no appointment |
| After-hours delivery | Service performed outside normal hours | POD delivery timestamp; facility hours | Timestamp falls inside normal hours |
| Redelivery | Carrier attempted delivery and had to return | First attempt record with date and time; refusal notation | No documented first attempt |
| Reconsignment or diversion | Address or consignee changed after tender | Original BOL versus POD address; written change request | No written change instruction, or billed twice under both names |
| Diversion or out-of-route miles | Route deviated at your request | Written routing instruction; mileage basis in the contract | Miles computed on a different mileage engine than the contract names |
| Additional stops | Route included stops beyond the base | Rate confirmation stop list versus POD set | Base rate already included the stop count |
| Reweigh | Actual weight differed from the BOL weight | Certified scale ticket with date, time, and location | Reweigh billed with no scale ticket produced |
| Reclassification | NMFC class on the BOL was wrong | Carrier inspection report with dimensions and density math | Class changed without density figures shown |
| Sort and segregate | Freight was sorted by SKU, store, or pallet | Receiver instruction; signed record of the work | Standard palletized delivery billed as sortation |
| Oversized or overlength | Freight exceeded a stated dimension threshold | BOL dimensions; carrier measurement record | Dimension threshold in the tariff differs from the one applied |
| Hazardous materials | Shipment required hazmat handling | BOL hazmat declaration and UN number | Non-regulated material flagged by keyword |
| Storage | Freight was held beyond free storage time | Warehouse in/out dates; notice of availability | Storage clock ran while the carrier had not notified anyone |
| Fuel surcharge | Index-based adjustment to linehaul | Contract formula plus the published index for the correct week | Wrong index week, wrong base price, or wrong peg |
| Metro pickup or delivery | Stop fell in a designated congested zone | BOL ZIP against the carrier’s published zone list | ZIP not actually on the published list |
Three of these deserve their own treatment because the documentation fight is deeper than a table row allows: liftgate on a dock-to-dock delivery, when the detention free time clock actually starts, and fuel surcharge recomputed from the DOE index. Lumper and TONU get theirs in who actually pays a lumper fee and how reimbursement works and what TONU means and when the fee is owed, and the pair that most often bills one change order twice is worked through in reconsignment versus diversion charges.
The four failure patterns behind almost every bad accessorial
After enough invoices, the individual charges stop looking distinct. The same four things go wrong.
The condition was asserted from an address, not observed. Residential, limited access, metro, and liftgate charges are frequently generated by software matching a delivery ZIP or address string against a list. Nobody looked at the site. This is not fraud, it is automation with no exception path, and the fix is showing that the specific address does not meet the specific definition in the carrier’s own tariff.
Two charges bill the same work. Lumper and driver-unload on the same stop, where only one party actually did the labor. Liftgate and inside delivery when only the liftgate happened. Detention and layover overlapping on the same hours. Read the invoice as a description of a day and ask whether that day physically contains all of it.
The clock started at the wrong event. Detention, storage, and free time generally. Contracts differ on whether the clock starts at arrival, at appointment time, at check-in, or at the later of arrival and appointment. Most detention disputes that look like arguments about minutes are actually arguments about which event opened the window.
The charge is real but the rate is not the contracted one. The service happened, nobody disputes it, and the invoice applies a tariff rate where your agreement names a negotiated one. This is the quietest category and often the largest in dollars, because it survives every review that only asks “did this happen?”
Worth saying plainly: nearly all of this is process artifact, not intent. Accessorials are usually added by a billing clerk reading a driver note or a system flag, days after the truck left. The people generating the charge and the people who saw the facility are different people. Treat the dispute as an information problem and the resolution rate goes up.
The verification pass, in order
Run this on any accessorial line, in this sequence. The order matters because each step either resolves the line or narrows the next one.
- Read the charge description. If the invoice does not state the nature of the charge, request itemization under 49 CFR 373.103 before doing anything else. You cannot dispute a code.
- Name the condition. Write the sentence the charge is asserting: “a liftgate was required at delivery”, “the driver waited 2.5 hours past free time”. If you cannot write that sentence, the carrier has not told you enough.
- Pull the rate confirmation. Is this charge named? Is there an accessorial schedule incorporated by reference? Does the contract require written pre-authorization? A charge that is not named and not incorporated is billing outside the agreed scope.
- Pull the shipment document from the document column. BOL, POD, scale ticket, lumper receipt, cancellation message. The point is that it was created at the time of the event, before anyone had a billing reason to characterize it.
- Check the arithmetic separately from the entitlement. Even a fully earned accessorial can be billed at the wrong rate, the wrong unit, or the wrong quantity. Confirm rate, unit, and count against the contract.
- Check for a twin. Search the same PRO or load number for a second charge covering the same work, and search the prior 90 days for the same invoice number. Two charges for one piece of work, and one invoice paid twice, are the two cheapest recoveries on any audit desk.
- Check the date. Original invoice or a later rebill. If it is a rebill, note the 180-day window under 49 U.S.C. 13710.
- Dispute in writing, release the undisputed balance. Attach both documents, state the specific action you want, and give a date. Paying everything except the contested line removes the carrier’s past-due leverage and keeps the relationship workable.
What to fix so the next invoice is cleaner
Disputing one accessorial is worth an hour at most. Ending a pattern is worth a quarter of them.
- Put the condition on the BOL while it is still true. “Dock delivery, no liftgate required.” “Commercial address, standing hours 0700 to 1500.” “Shipper unloads, no lumper authorized.” A shipment document that describes the site removes the guess that generates the charge.
- Get the accessorial schedule attached to the contract, with rates. A rate confirmation that names linehaul and fuel and then incorporates an unnamed rules tariff by reference is an open-ended authorization. Ask for the schedule as an exhibit.
- Define the clock trigger in writing for detention, storage, and free time. One sentence naming the starting event prevents most of the minute-by-minute arguments.
- Require written pre-authorization above a dollar threshold. This converts a surprise charge into a process breach, which is a much easier conversation.
- Track by charge code, not by invoice. One $85 liftgate is noise. The same code appearing on 40 loads a quarter from one carrier is a conversation with a number attached, and that is the only version of this that changes behavior.
Sources
- 49 CFR 373.103, Freight or expense bills (Cornell LII)
- 49 CFR 373.101, Motor carrier receipts and bills of lading (Cornell LII)
- 49 U.S.C. 13710, billing and contesting windows (Cornell LII)
- 49 CFR 378.4, documentation required with an overcharge claim (Cornell LII)
- 49 CFR 378.8, overcharge claim resolution within 60 days (Cornell LII)
- Top 20 accessorial charges, practitioner taxonomy (Zipline Logistics)
- NMFC class is set by density, handling, stowability and liability (NMFTA)