DHL Express is to raise its rates in the US by an average of 5.4% from 1 January 2019. This comes after the two big players FedEx and UPS announced they would raise their domestic rates by an identical 4.9% last week.

According to the DHL website, “At DHL Express U.S., international isn’t just a part of our business – it is our business. To ensure that we continue to guarantee you the industry’s highest-quality international service performance, a competitive rate increase for U.S. account holders will take effect on January 1, 2019. Shipping rates for DHL Express international services will increase by an average of 5.4%.”

There will be other increases too. Amongst others, the Oversize Piece charges will increase from $89 per shipment to $89 per piece and Dangerous Goods will increase from $98.25 per shipment to $103.25 per shipment. The rest of the surcharges are rather minimal.

There are to be two new services introduced stateside by DHL too – the Direct Signature service will require a signature from the recipient at the other end, while Continuous Bond, according to DHL, “is a new service where upon customer’s request and receipt of customer’s application, DHL will purchase a continuous bond on the customer’s behalf. The continuous bond would remain in effect for a year, and would cover all entries for the importer of record, through any port, providing the broker has a valid Power of Attorney from the importer or principal.”

DHL has only recently begun to return to the US domestic market after leaving in 2009. Most of its business in the US is international imports and exports so while a less competitive rate increase than the dominant two in the market this shouldn’t harm business too much.