Maersk trims Australian intermodal fuel fee to 25%, holds NZ at 27%

Maersk will cut its Intermodal Fuel Fee from 27% to 25% across five Australian states from 1 November 2026. New Zealand shippers get no such relief — the fee there stays at 27%.

The reduction applies uniformly across Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia. It's a two-point drop from the 27% level Maersk charged through October, and it lands on the same landside services — rail and road legs feeding the carrier's ocean network — that have carried the surcharge since its introduction.

What does this change for shippers?

For Australian importers and exporters, the arithmetic is straightforward. A two-point cut on a percentage-based fee means marginally softer landside costs per container, effective on the first day of November. For anyone budgeting freight on annual contracts, the practical question is whether this is a trend or a pause. Maersk isn't saying — the carrier has committed only to monthly reviews.

New Zealand cargo interests face the opposite situation. Their fee holds at 27%, and Maersk has given no timetable for narrowing the trans-Tasman gap. That asymmetry matters for shippers routing cargo through Australian ports versus direct NZ calls, since landside costs now diverge by two percentage points on identical surcharge mechanics.

Why the fee exists at all

Maersk introduced the Intermodal Fuel Fee in New Zealand on 16 March 2026. On documents it appears as EFS for exports and IFS for imports — codes forwarders will already have on their invoices.

The carrier's stated rationale runs along two tracks. First, pressure from global energy prices and fuel availability. Second, what Maersk described as the evolving security situation in the Middle East and its knock-on effect on landside and intermodal transportation costs.

That second point deserves a dry note: a Middle East security dynamic now prices itself into a truck leg between Melbourne and Adelaide. Whether that causal chain convinces every shipper is another matter. Surcharges rarely shrink as eagerly as they grow.

Monthly reviews, monthly risk

Maersk has said the levels will be reviewed monthly, with further adjustments possible as energy market conditions develop. That phrasing cuts both ways. November's reduction could extend into December, or it could reverse if fuel costs climb again.

For forwarders and BCOs, the operational takeaway is administrative as much as financial. Percentage-based surcharges recalculated monthly mean invoice lines that move even when base rates don't. Procurement teams indexing contracts to fixed all-in prices will want carve-outs or caps written explicitly against the EFS and IFS codes.

The wider read

A 25% fuel fee remains a substantial add-on by any measure — a quarter again on top of the underlying landside transport cost. The two-point cut is a genuine reduction, but it's a trim at the edges of a surcharge that has clearly found a comfortable home on the invoice.

The structure itself tells the story. Maersk has built a recurring, adjustable, percentage-linked fee into its Australasian landside product, reviewed on a monthly cadence. Shippers now carry the fuel-price risk that carriers once absorbed, and the only lever they control is timing — reviewing volumes and routings in the windows between adjustments.

Watch the December review. If the Australian fee holds at 25% and New Zealand stays at 27%, the gap becomes policy rather than noise — and that would tell shippers something about how Maersk prices the two markets going forward.