Amazon FBA reimbursement is money Amazon owes you when its own fulfillment network loses, damages, or miscalculates fees on your inventory. As of October 2024, most manual claims must be filed within 60 days of the event, not the 18 months sellers may remember from a few years ago — and since November 2024, Amazon automatically reimburses most lost or damaged warehouse items without you filing anything at all.
If you’re still running a quarterly or annual reimbursement check, the current rules mean you’re very likely losing eligible claims before you ever open a report.
What Changed, and When
Amazon rolled out two major reimbursement policy changes in late 2024, plus a valuation change in 2025:
October 23, 2024 — the claims window shrank by roughly 89%. Lost or damaged items inside a fulfillment center now must be claimed within 60 days of the event (down from 18 months). Customer return discrepancies get a 60–120 day window. Inventory lost in transit during a removal order has a 15–75 day window depending on the specifics.
November 1, 2024 — automatic reimbursements expanded. Amazon now proactively reimburses most lost-in-warehouse and damaged-in-warehouse claims without a seller needing to file. This cuts down on manual work for the most common claim type, but it does not cover return discrepancies, fee overcharges, inbound shipment shortages, or unauthorized destruction — those still generally require you to catch the issue and file.
March 31, 2025 — reimbursement value changed for pre-sale losses. Inventory lost or damaged before a customer order is now reimbursed at your manufacturing/sourcing cost rather than retail price. If you haven’t set a sourcing cost per SKU in Seller Central, Amazon estimates it for you — and that estimate typically runs lower than your real cost. Setting this field accurately is now a prerequisite for getting a fair reimbursement amount, not an optional detail.
The practical effect of all three changes together: reimbursement recovery now rewards speed and per-SKU cost accuracy far more than it used to, and punishes the “check it once a year” approach that used to work fine under the old 18-month rule.
The 6 Types of Amazon Reimbursement Claims
Not every dollar Amazon owes you shows up the same way. These are the six areas worth auditing:
Lost inventory — units that entered Amazon’s fulfillment network but were never accounted for during receiving, internal transfers, or storage. Now mostly auto-reimbursed, but discrepancies still slip through, especially on higher-SKU-count catalogs.
Damaged inventory — products damaged by Amazon during receiving, storage, picking, packing, or shipping, before they ever reach a customer. Also largely automated now, but multi-pack items and bundle SKUs are where automated detection tends to miss cases.
Fee overcharges — dimensional weight errors, incorrect size-tier classification, and duplicate charges that quietly inflate your FBA fees. This is one of the categories Amazon does not auto-correct; you have to catch it.
Return discrepancies — a customer’s return is accepted and refunded, but the unit is never restocked to your inventory or the refund exceeds the actual sale price. Still a manual filing category, with a 60–120 day window.
Inbound shipment errors — you ship a certain quantity to Amazon, but Amazon’s receiving records show fewer units arrived, with no correction issued. Requires shipment documentation (tracking, packing lists, photos) to file successfully.
Unauthorized destruction — Amazon disposes of your inventory without proper notice or authorization. Entitles you to the full retail value of the destroyed units, but requires you to catch it and file within the applicable window.
How to Check What Amazon Owes You
A basic monthly audit takes about 30–60 minutes and covers:
- Download the Inventory Reconciliation Report (last 30 days) and scan for “Lost – Warehouse” or “Damaged – Warehouse” line items your automatic reimbursements may have missed.
- Pull the Customer Returns Report and cross-check against your actual restocked inventory for units marked “closed” that never came back.
- Compare your inbound shipment confirmations against what Amazon’s receiving records show for each shipment.
- Spot-check 5–10 recent orders’ FBA fees against your product’s actual dimensions and weight to catch tier misclassification.
- File any manual claim you find immediately — the 60-day clock starts from the event date, not from when you notice it.
Waiting to batch these quarterly, the way many sellers still do, means claims from the first two months of the quarter are already outside the window by the time you check.
DIY vs. a Professional Audit
Handling this yourself works fine for smaller catalogs where you can realistically check reports weekly. It gets harder to sustain as SKU count and order volume grow, particularly because:
- The 60-day window means a missed week of monitoring can mean a missed claim, permanently.
- Fee overcharge and inbound shipment claims require pulling and cross-referencing multiple report types correctly to build a case Amazon will actually approve.
- Setting accurate sourcing costs per SKU (required for a fair reimbursement value under the March 2025 rule) is a one-time setup task most sellers haven’t done.
If you’d rather have this monitored and filed for you rather than adding a weekly report-pull to your task list, that’s what our Amazon reimbursement service audits and files on a performance basis. You only pay a percentage of what’s actually recovered.
FAQ
What is Amazon FBA reimbursement? It’s compensation Amazon pays sellers when its own fulfillment process loses, damages, or miscalculates fees on their inventory. Covering lost or damaged warehouse stock, unprocessed returns, fee overcharges, inbound shipment shortages, and unauthorized destruction.
How long do I have to file an Amazon reimbursement claim? Most fulfillment-center lost/damaged claims must be filed within 60 days of the event. Customer return claims have a 60–120 day window. Removal-in-transit losses have a 15–75 day window depending on the case. These replaced the old 18-month window as of October 23, 2024.
Does Amazon automatically reimburse lost or damaged inventory? For most warehouse lost and damaged cases, yes, since November 1, 2024. Return discrepancies, fee overcharges, inbound shipment errors, and unauthorized destruction generally still require a manual claim.
How much can I expect to recover? Industry estimates put reimbursable errors at roughly 1–3% of annual FBA revenue, though the actual amount depends on catalog size, order volume, and how consistently your account has been monitored.
Why did my reimbursement amount seem lower than expected? If the loss happened before a customer order. Amazon now reimburses at your manufacturing/sourcing cost rather than retail price, as of March 31, 2025. If you haven’t set a sourcing cost per SKU, Amazon’s default estimate may be lower than your actual cost.
