Dear Customers,
When calculating our prices for the upcoming year, we regularly base our estimates on predicted rates for electricity, fuel, track usage charges, and the expected subsidies for intermodal products in individual countries. Any deviation from the values we have based our calculations on will be reflected in an additional surcharge. Although you are familiar with most of the surcharges from previous years, we would like to reiterate their justification today.
The current amount of all surcharges can be found on our website.
IFS – Imbalance Flow Surcharge is a new surcharge that applies to services with a significant imbalance in the flow of goods. It serves to ensure the frequency of the services you require in both import and export, regardless of the actual volumes in each direction.
TES – Traction Energy Surcharge is closely related to fluctuations in the price of traction energy.
RIS – Rail Infrastructure Surcharge is the result of the subsidy policy for intermodal products and the price for the use of railway infrastructure set by the relevant state administration.
CS – Congestion Surcharge covers non-standard additional costs incurred in the event of track closures, strikes, congestion of railway infrastructure, and inland terminals. This mainly includes the deployment of trains and staff on longer routes, fees for trains that are not allowed to continue their journey, or cancellations of routes and truck deliveries from external terminals.
FS – Fuel Surcharge offsets fluctuations in fuel prices for truck deliveries.
DTS – Detour Surcharge compensates for costs incurred due to significant road detours.
TOLL – Our toll charges reflect the toll fees in individual countries. If price of the toll is already included in the price, we respond to the official increase of toll with an Additional Toll surcharge.
Surcharges for the 1st Quarter of 2026
IFS – As of 01.01.2026, we are introducing a surcharge in Germany for the Bavaria service (transports via Munich and Nuremberg terminals).
TES – The Croatian rail infrastructure manager HŽ Infrastruktura d.o.o. has announced a sharp increase in traction energy prices. For shipments to/from Rijeka in connection with HU, SK, AT, CZ and RS (Indjija), we are forced to activate a TES of EUR 25 / TEU. All other conditions remain unchanged.
RIS – Decisions by the responsible authorities for 2026 are not yet known. The situation remains unchanged, as does RIS for Q1 2026.
CS – Our newsletters show that the situation on the railways remains strained. The surcharge continues to apply without change.
FS – Continues without change.
DTS – All detour surcharges valid for CZ are being cancelled. All others remain unchanged.
TOLL – As of 01.01.2026, we are cancelling the additional toll for transports via SK terminals. The fee will be included in the price increase for the respective service. However, the situation regarding the toll for the future in some countries (e.g., RO and CZ) is not yet clear.
General Conditions 2026 – Change in the Waiting Time Surcharge
At the beginning of 2025, we launched a project to evenly distribute loadings/unloadings throughout the entire day. The truck and terminal capacity is not unlimited, and shifting part of the container positioning to the afternoon hours has become necessary due to growing volumes.
This intention was also financially supported by us; however, no significant shift of loadings/unloadings to the afternoon hours occurred. The vast majority of container deliveries continues to be ordered for morning or late-morning hours.
For this reason, from 01.01.2026, section 3.11.1. of our General Conditions will be amended. This section specifies the free time and waiting time surcharges for truck positioning in CZ, SK, PL and HU.
The free time for loading/unloading remains unchanged at 3 hours. The surcharge for the first hour of waiting time increases from the current EUR 15 to EUR 30 per container. Each additional commenced hour will continue to be charged at EUR 30 per container. The maximum daily rate will then be EUR 300.
If you have any questions regarding our prices and surcharges, please contact our Pricing Department.
We look forward to our continued cooperation and sincerely thank you for the collaboration so far.
METRANS Team
