A U.S. missile strike on an Iran-bound tanker off Oman on June 8 put the Strait of Hormuz back on every operations desk’s radar. The cost that will actually land on your shipments has little to do with Gulf routing. It’s a quarterly bunker reset: Freightos estimates many contracted shippers face roughly an 80% jump in fuel surcharges in July when carriers update their quarterly BAF, and that single reset explains most of what you’re seeing in the market right now.
The frontloading you’re hearing about is shippers running ahead of that BAF increase. The National Retail Federation moved its 2026 peak-import month forward to June, and both NRF and Freightos tie the early surge to the same driver: retailers pulling cargo forward to ship before higher fuel surcharges and tariff costs hit later in the summer. On top of the BAF reset, carriers are filing peak season surcharges on specific lanes with specific effective dates. The practical question for a forwarder or BCO this week is which of your in-transit containers catch which dated charge — a container-level timing problem before it’s a finance problem.
Why July is the date that matters
Bunker Adjustment Factor is the fuel component carriers add on top of base ocean rates, and most lines reset it quarterly against the prior period’s fuel prices. Because 2026 fuel costs have run elevated through the Iran conflict and Red Sea diversions, the next quarterly update lands hard. Freightos flags an 80% BAF jump for many contracted shippers starting in July; independent BAF trackers put 2026 quarterly swings more in the ±15–50% range depending on lane, so treat the 80% as a high-end estimate for the most exposed contracts rather than a universal figure. Either way, the direction is up, and the date is the start of Q3. (....)