Two stories dominated freight desks this week, and both land directly on the invoice of anyone importing under DDP terms. The first is money going out: a fresh wave of peak season surcharges from Maersk, Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM, landing on top of trans-Pacific rates that are already 45–70% above last year. The second is money coming back: the US government is now deep into refunding the tariffs the Supreme Court struck down in February — roughly $135 billion in IEEPA duties — and the question of who receives that money has a surprising answer for DDP buyers.
Here is what actually happened in the last seven days, and what it means for your next shipment from China.
Story 1: The peak season surcharge wave is here — and it is layered
Carriers spent the week filing new surcharges across nearly every corridor that touches China, and the pattern matters as much as the numbers.
Maersk revised its Peak Season Surcharge on the Far East–South Africa lane to $500 per 40ft container (and $250 per 20ft), effective 15 October and running until further notice. The filing covers twelve origin markets including mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam — so if you are moving goods into Southern Africa for the summer retail season, this lands on your booking confirmation with no opt-out. On the same day, Maersk filed separate PSS increases from the Indian Subcontinent and Middle East into the US East Coast and Gulf at $5,150 per container ($5,700 to Houston) from 23 October, and $3,400 to the US and Canadian West Coast.
Hapag-Lloyd filed twice in eight days on the South America corridor: a PSS of $500/$1,000 per 20ft/40ft effective 5 November (running 30 days), and a General Rate Increase of $1,000 per container effective 15 November with no end date. For the three weeks in mid-November when both are live, a single 40ft box carries $2,000 of surcharges before base freight.
CMA CGM moved on 1 October with what shippers should read as the new normal: a layered structure in which rate restoration amounts, FAK tariffs, bunker surcharges, EU ETS and low-sulphur charges are published together — while terminal handling, security fees and local charges are still billed separately. The published rate is no longer close to the landed rate.
Underneath the surcharges, the base market is not giving anyone relief. Drewry’s WCI reading of 8 October put Shanghai–Los Angeles at $7,624 per 40ft and Shanghai–New York at $10,220 — the trans-Pacific lanes running 45–70% above Q4 2025 levels. Demand is the reason: the Port of Los Angeles just reported its busiest month on record, clearing more than one million TEUs in September. Asia–North Europe, by contrast, has declined for thirteen straight weeks to $3,337, the widest trans-Pac/North Europe spread in years — a signal that capacity is being pulled west, not that the market is softening globally.
If you are budgeting Q4 inventory, treat any quote that does not itemize surcharges as an estimate, not a price. Our September 2026 freight rates analysis walks through how the congestion and rate picture built up through Q3.
Story 2: The $135B tariff refund — and why DDP buyers may never see a cent of it
The second story is the quiet one, and it may be worth more to your business than the surcharge wave costs you.
After the Supreme Court struck down the IEEPA tariffs in February 2026, CBP built the CAPE system to refund the duties it had collected. The numbers as of this month are striking: approximately $134.7 billion in potential refunds has been accepted into the system, roughly $122 billion has been certified and passed to the Treasury for payment — and CBP opened Phase 3 of the refund process on 6 October, following Phase 1 on 20 April and Phase 2 on 29 June.
The Wall Street Journal reported this week how unevenly that money is landing. Walmart has received $2.9 billion and Apple $2.2 billion, because both companies are their own importers of record and claimed directly. Smaller businesses — which typically paid tariffs through FedEx, DHL Express or UPS as their entry filer — have waited significantly longer. DHL says about 92% of eligible customer refunds were returned by mid-September; FedEx says it has released hundreds of millions of dollars while prioritizing compliance. Some 20,184 refunds worth $1.3 billion are currently on hold simply because importers never supplied bank details.
Here is the part almost nobody tells DDP buyers: the refund legally belongs to the importer of record. Under DDP Incoterms, that is your supplier — or the freight forwarder acting on their behalf — not you. When you paid “DDP” during the IEEPA period, the duties were baked into your unit price. If the importer of record now collects a refund on those entries, the commercial question of whether any of it flows back to you is exactly that: a commercial question, not a customs one. Importers who bought DDP between 2025 and early 2026 should be asking their suppliers, in writing, how IEEPA refunds on their entries are being handled.
Two footnotes worth knowing. First, Phase 3 currently opens only to importers of record who are plaintiffs in a pending Court of International Trade case — a limitation still being contested. Second, the tariff landscape did not return to zero when IEEPA fell: the 10% Section 122 surcharge expired on 24 July at its 150-day statutory limit, leaving Section 301 and 232 measures as the governing stack, and the $800 de minimis exemption remains suspended with a statutory repeal scheduled for 1 July 2027. In other words: refunds are real, but so are the duties that remain.
What this means for DDP importers this quarter
Four practical takeaways from this week’s news:
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Demand an itemized surcharge clause. With PSS and GRI filings arriving weekly, a DDP quote is only as good as its surcharge policy. Ask your forwarder which surcharges are included, which pass through at cost, and what happens when a carrier files mid-transit. A reputable partner answers this in one sentence: everything is included in the agreed rate.
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Revisit your Q4 timing. The combined reliability and congestion picture we covered in our Q4 shipping delays playbook is not improving, and surcharges now reward early booking on contract terms rather than spot market gambling. If your goods can ship in early November instead of late November, the spread on a 40ft container can be four figures.
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Raise the tariff refund question with your supplier. If any of your 2025–2026 imports moved DDP into the US, someone collected a refund on duties you effectively paid. You are entitled to ask how it is being handled — and suppliers with transparent accounting will have an answer.
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Watch the parallel express-market changes. FedEx lifts US list rates an average of 5.9% on 4 January 2027, adds a $25 fee for paper trade documents from 18 January, and both UPS and FedEx residential surcharges stepped up this week. If your DDP program includes last-mile parcel, those costs flow into 2027 quotes now being written.
The bottom line
Q4 2026 is repricing international shipping from two directions at once: carriers are collecting more on the way out, and governments are refunding some of what was collected on the way in. Both movements pass through the importer of record — which, under DDP, is your side of the trade wearing the forwarder’s hat. That is precisely why the DDP model exists: one party, one price, one throat to choke when the paperwork, the surcharges or the refunds get complicated.
DDPShipping quotes DDP door-to-door rates from China with duties, clearance and carrier surcharges included — no pass-through surprises filed mid-transit, and a clear written policy on how tariff changes and refund events are handled on your entries. If you are planning Q4 or 2027 volume, get a quote with the full stack itemized before your supplier’s next price list locks in.