The first time I looked at an Amazon settlement report closely, I couldn't match half the line items to anything I'd planned for. I'd budgeted for the referral fee and the FBA fee, the two everyone talks about. Then there was storage, inbound placement, a few cents here and there for things I'd never heard of, and an advertising line that was much bigger than any of them.
This guide goes through every fee Amazon charges a US FBA seller as of October 2026, in the order you'll run into them. If you just want a number for a product, the FBA Fee Calculator does the math. If you want to know why the number is what it is, read on.
The short version
Every FBA sale pays two fees: a referral fee (a percentage of the price) and a fulfillment fee (a flat amount by size and weight). On top of that you pay to store inventory each month and to get it into Amazon's warehouses. Then there are situational fees that only show up if your inventory is too low, too old, or returned too often. And there's the $39.99 monthly Professional plan.
| Fee | What it's for | How it's charged |
|---|---|---|
| Referral | Selling on Amazon | % of sale price, usually 15%, $0.30 minimum |
| Fulfillment | Picking, packing, shipping | Flat per unit by size tier and weight, plus 3.5% surcharge |
| Monthly storage | Warehouse space | Per cubic foot per month, higher in Q4 |
| Inbound placement | Distributing your shipment | Per unit, depends on how many locations you ship to |
| Low-inventory level | Running too lean | Per unit shipped when supply drops under 28 days |
| Returns processing | Handling returns | Per returned unit, only above a category threshold (always for apparel) |
| Professional plan | Your seller account | $39.99 per month |
Referral fees
The referral fee is Amazon's commission for the sale. It's a percentage of the total price the buyer pays for the item, including any shipping or gift wrap charges, and it applies whether you use FBA or ship it yourself. Referral fees did not change for 2026.
| Category | Referral fee |
|---|---|
| Most categories (home, kitchen, toys, sports, office, pet) | 15% |
| Consumer electronics | 8% |
| Beauty, health & personal care | 8% up to $10, 15% above |
| Clothing & accessories | 5% up to $15, 10% to $20, 17% above |
| Jewelry | 20% up to $250, 5% on the rest |
There's a $0.30 minimum per item in most categories. That rarely matters unless you sell items under $2.
The clothing tiers are worth noticing. A shirt at $19.99 pays 10%, about $2.00. Raise it to $20.99 and it pays 17%, about $3.57. That one dollar price increase costs you $1.57 in extra fees, so you actually take home $0.57 less. Prices just under a tier break often make more money than prices just over it.
Fulfillment fees
This is what Amazon charges to pick your item off a shelf, pack it, and ship it to the customer. It's a flat dollar amount set by two things: the item's size tier and its shipping weight. It doesn't care what you charge for the item.
Size tiers
- Small standard: up to 16 oz and no bigger than 15 x 12 x 0.75 inches. Think phone cases, small accessories, a pair of tube squeezers.
- Large standard: up to 20 lb and no bigger than 18 x 14 x 8 inches. Most household products live here.
- Bulky: anything bigger or heavier, split into small and large bulky and beyond.
Shipping weight and dimensional weight
Amazon bills on shipping weight, which is the item plus its packaging. For large standard and bulky items, it also calculates dimensional weight: length times width times height in inches, divided by 139. Whichever is higher is what you're billed on. A 12 x 9 x 6 inch box works out to 4.66 lb of dimensional weight, even if the thing inside weighs a pound. That's how light, bulky products end up with fees that make no sense until you do this math.
2026 rates
The current rate card took effect January 15, 2026. A few reference points for non-apparel items priced $10 to $50:
- Small standard: about $3.20 up to 4 oz, rising to about $3.70 at 16 oz.
- Large standard: $3.73 up to 4 oz, $4.60 at 12 to 16 oz, $5.42 at 1.25 to 1.5 lb, $6.67 at 2.75 to 3 lb, then $6.97 plus $0.08 for every 4 oz above 3 lb.
- Items priced under $10 get a lower rate, about $0.86 less per unit than the standard band.
The 3.5% surcharge
On April 17, 2026, Amazon added a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on top of FBA fulfillment fees in the US and Canada. It also applies to Multi-Channel Fulfillment starting May 2. Amazon calls it temporary but hasn't said when it ends. On a $4.60 fee it's 16 cents, which doesn't sound like much until you multiply it by every unit you sell all year.
Storage fees
Amazon charges monthly for the space your inventory takes up, measured in cubic feet. The rate triples in the fourth quarter because warehouse space is scarce during the holidays.
| Size | Jan to Sep | Oct to Dec |
|---|---|---|
| Standard size | $0.78 per cu ft | $2.40 per cu ft |
| Oversize / bulky | $0.56 per cu ft | $1.40 per cu ft |
To get cubic feet per unit, multiply the packaged dimensions in inches and divide by 1,728. Small items barely register: a 0.05 cubic foot item costs about 4 cents a month to store most of the year. The fees that hurt are the extras on top. Inventory that sits long enough picks up aged inventory surcharges, and accounts with too much inventory relative to sales pay a storage utilization surcharge. Both are Amazon's way of telling you to stop sending in more than you can sell.
Inbound placement fees
When you create a shipment, Amazon usually wants your inventory split across several fulfillment centers so it's close to customers. You can let Amazon split it into multiple shipments for little or no placement fee, or pay a per-unit fee to send everything to fewer locations. For 2026 the ranges were restructured: roughly $0.14 to $0.32 per unit for small standard items, and $0.20 to $1.50 for large standard depending on weight and how many locations you choose.
Whether to pay it is a trade-off. Splitting means more boxes and more labels, and each partial shipment costs you in carrier minimums. For a small seller sending one or two boxes, paying the placement fee is often cheaper than the extra shipping. For bigger shipments, splitting usually wins. Either way, it's a real per-unit cost, so put it in your math.
Low-inventory level fee
This one surprises people. If your stock of a product drops below 28 days of supply, compared with both your short-term and long-term sales, Amazon charges a fee on units shipped while you're under that line. The logic is that running lean makes it harder for Amazon to place inventory close to buyers. New products in their first months and slow sellers are generally exempt, and from 2026 the fee also covers bulky items.
The practical takeaway: Amazon penalizes you for having too much inventory (aged and utilization surcharges) and for having too little (low-inventory fee). The sweet spot is roughly one to three months of supply.
Returns processing fee
For apparel and shoes, Amazon charges a returns processing fee on every returned unit, starting around $1.65 for the smallest items. For other categories, it only applies to products whose return rate is above a threshold for their category, for example 5.5% in beauty and health or 8.1% in home and kitchen. Sellers shipping fewer than 25 units a month are exempt.
Even without the fee, returns cost you the original fulfillment fee (not refunded), sometimes the item itself if it comes back damaged, and a slice of the referral fee. I go through how to price that in how returns eat your profit.
Other fees worth knowing
- Professional plan: $39.99 a month. The Individual plan is free but charges $0.99 per item sold, so Professional pays for itself above 40 sales a month.
- Removal and disposal: per-unit fees to have Amazon send back or throw out inventory you can't sell.
- Prep and labeling: Amazon stopped offering its FBA prep service on January 1, 2026, so poly bagging, bubble wrap, and FNSKU labels are on you or a prep center.
- Advertising: not a fee Amazon requires, but for most sellers it's the biggest cost after the item itself. More on that in ROAS and ACoS explained.
A full example
Here's a $24.99 product in large standard with a shipping weight of 0.9 lb, a landed cost of $7.00, about 0.08 cubic feet packed, and two months of inventory on hand. Inbound shipping is $0.40 per unit plus a $0.30 placement fee.
About a 35% margin. Amazon's own fees come to about $8.93, or 36% of the price.
That's a healthy product. Now notice what could break it. If the same two months of stock sat in the warehouse through November and December, storage would jump from $0.12 to $0.38. If the packaging pushed it to 1.1 lb, fulfillment would go to $5.22. And if you spend $4 a unit on ads to get it ranking, half the profit is gone. None of those show up when you look only at the referral and fulfillment fee.
How to keep FBA fees down
- Measure your packaging, then shrink it. Dropping one weight band, or from large standard into small standard, can save $0.50 to $1.50 a unit forever.
- Send in one to three months of supply. Enough to avoid low-inventory fees, not so much that it ages or sits through Q4.
- Watch prices near tier breaks in clothing and beauty, where a small price change moves the referral rate.
- Bundle cheap items. The fulfillment fee is flat, so a multi-pack spreads it over a bigger price. See how to price multi-packs and bundles.
- Reconcile your settlement reports. Compare what you expected to pay against what Amazon actually charged. Dimension errors on Amazon's side do happen, and you can request a re-measure.
Questions people ask
How much does Amazon take from an FBA sale?
For a typical $20 to $30 item, Amazon's referral and fulfillment fees together usually take 30% to 40% of the sale price. Cheaper items lose a bigger share because the fulfillment fee is a flat dollar amount.
Did Amazon raise FBA fees in 2026?
Yes. Fulfillment fees rose an average of about $0.08 per unit on January 15, 2026, inbound placement fees were restructured, and a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge was added to fulfillment fees on April 17, 2026. Referral fees didn't change.
Is the 3.5% surcharge permanent?
Amazon describes it as temporary but hasn't announced an end date. Plan with it included until Amazon says otherwise.
How do I lower my FBA fees?
Get packaging smaller and lighter so items drop a weight band or size tier, keep inventory moving so you avoid aged inventory and Q4 storage costs, keep enough stock to avoid low-inventory fees, and bundle cheap items so the flat fulfillment fee is spread over a higher price.