Lumper fee
A lumper fee is the charge for third-party labor that loads or unloads the trailer at a warehouse, paid at the dock and normally reimbursed by the broker or shipper.
Updated
Usage is inconsistent on one point. Some operations reserve "lumper" for third-party crews at grocery and retail distribution centers, while others apply it to any unloading charge including the receiver's own labor. The rate confirmation decides who bears it.
In practice. The driver pays at the dock, often by comcheck or a fuel card code issued by the broker, and submits the receipt for reimbursement. Brokers who issue the payment code directly avoid the reimbursement step entirely, which is the cleaner arrangement.
The receipt is the whole battle. It has to show the facility, the date, the amount, and the load or PO reference. A hand-written amount with no facility name gets denied.
Example. A driver pays a $175 lumper fee at a grocery distribution center. With the receipt attached to the invoice, the load bills at $2,400 plus $175. If the receipt is lost, the carrier absorbs $175, which is about 7% of the load.
Why it matters for your cash flow. Lumpers are money leaving your account today against reimbursement weeks later, which is a cash gap on top of the one the invoice already creates. A denied lumper turns into a direct loss on a load you already ran.
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