Amazon reimbursement: what Amazon owes FBA sellers, and how to collect it

Amazon's FBA inventory reimbursement policy is short on the core promise: if an item you send to FBA is lost or damaged at a facility or by a carrier operated by or for Amazon, Amazon replaces it with a new item of the same product or reimburses you for it. An Amazon reimbursement is that payment, credited to your seller account.

The policy covers four places where things go wrong: shipments to Amazon, fulfillment center operations, removals, and customer returns. The rules, windows and value differ for each, which is why sellers who only watch their payouts miss money they are owed.

This guide is about seller reimbursements under the FBA policy. If you are a shopper looking for a refund on an order, that is a different process, handled from Your Orders.

Amazon's policy lists conditions that must all be true for an item to be eligible. Most come down to three things: the item was properly in FBA, you sent what your shipping plan said, and your account is in good standing.

Amazon announced that from November 1, 2024 it proactively reimburses FBA items lost in its fulfillment centers, as soon as the fulfillment center reports them lost, and that almost all warehouse lost and damaged cases and customer return cases are now reimbursed automatically. You can track them in the Reimbursements report in Seller Central.

Two gaps remain. Removal claims always need to be filed manually. And if an automatic reimbursement does not arrive and you believe inventory was lost or damaged, you file a manual claim, within the window for that claim type.

The amount depends on whether the item was lost or damaged before or after a customer ordered it. Before an order, for shipment, removal and fulfillment center claims, Amazon reimburses the sourcing cost: your cost to source the product from a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or to produce it, excluding shipping, handling, customs duties and other costs. Amazon made this change effective March 10, 2025.

You can enter your sourcing cost on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page in the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal. If you do not, Amazon uses its own estimate, based on comparable products sold by Amazon, other sellers and wholesale channels. After an order, for customer return claims, the value is the refund amount or the price of the replacement on the original order, minus applicable fees.

The filing process differs by claim type, and Amazon's policy says it may decline a claim if you do not follow the right process and provide everything requested. In practice, a good claim has the specific event, the evidence and nothing extra.

Not every reimbursement is about lost inventory. FBA fulfillment fees depend on each product's size tier and weight, so a product measured wrong is charged the wrong fee on every unit. Amazon's 2026 fee summary points sellers to the FBA Re-measurement and Reimbursement Tool: if your product was measured incorrectly and you were charged the wrong FBA fees, the tool checks whether it is eligible for re-measurement and a reimbursement.

Overcharged fees are easy to miss because they are small per unit and repeat quietly for months. Comparing the dimensions and weight Amazon holds for each product with the real packaged product, and the fee you are charged with the fee its true size tier should carry, is the way to identify them.

A reimbursement is not always final. Amazon's policy says that if a reimbursement was made in error, or a reimbursed item is later found and returned to your inventory, Amazon can reverse the credit. It also says reimbursed items become Amazon's to dispose of, including by selling them, so a found item may appear on Amazon Warehouse rather than back in your stock.

Keep your reconciliation records for each reimbursement, so a later reversal can be matched to the found units, and keep your sourcing cost entries current, since Amazon refreshes its own estimates and notifies you when a refresh affects a cost you entered.