FBA long-term storage fees

Use the Inventory Age and Inventory Health reports to identify which ASINs in your inventory are subject to long-term storage fees. For each ASIN, you can see your inventory by the amount of time it has been in a fulfillment center:

• 0 to 90 days
• 91 to 180 days
• 181 to 270 days
• 271 to 365 days
• More than 365 days

This information can help you estimate the number of items that will have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days by the next inventory cleanup date.

The Recommended Removals report can also help you identify items subject to long-term storage fees. This report automatically calculates, on an ASIN-by-ASIN basis, the number of items you would have to remove to avoid long-term storage fees — assuming no further sales. This report identifies items that are subject to long-term storage fees up to 30 days before each long-term storage fee charge date.

To find the Inventory Age page, go to the Inventory tab in your seller account, then Inventory Planning. For the Inventory Health and Recommended Removal reports, go to the Reports tab, then Fulfillment.

The long-term storage fee is in addition to the monthly inventory storage fee. Assessment is based on the date an item is received in the fulfillment center.

Only items that have been in a fulfillment center for more than 365 days will be assessed a long-term storage fee.

FBA calculates inventory age on a first-in, first-out (FIFO) basis across the entire fulfillment network. Items sold or removed are deducted from the inventory that has been in the fulfillment network the longest, regardless of which unit was actually shipped or removed.

For example, if a fulfillment center associate picks and ships a unit that arrived in the fulfillment center recently, FBA will still deduct that unit from the oldest inventory in stock.

Active management of older inventory can help you avoid long-term storage fees. To remove older inventory before the next inventory cleanup date, you can:

• Submit a removal order
• Set up automated removals for inventory subject to long-term storage fees

Submit a removal order: If you submit a removal order for inventory before the cleanup date, that inventory won’t incur a long-term storage fee, even if it isn’t physically removed before the cleanup date. The deadline for submitting a removal order is 11:59 p.m. (PT) on the 14th of the month.

Inventory in sellable condition will be available for sale until the removal is complete. You will not be charged a removal order fee until the inventory has been returned to you or disposed of.

Items that sell after having incurred a long-term storage fee are not eligible for a refund of that fee.

Set up automated removals: If you set up automated removals by the 15th of each month for inventory that is subject to long-term storage fees, that inventory won’t be charged long-term storage fees. To set up automated removals, go to the Settings menu in Seller Central and click Fulfillment by Amazon.

You can enable removal of all inventory subject to long-term storage fees or select a price range to determine which items are to be removed. You can also keep inventory that is priced above a certain amount in the fulfillment center, pay the long-term storage fees for those items only, and have the remaining items returned to you or disposed of. Standard removal fees apply. For more information, see Remove inventory automatically.

Any unremoved items that are in sellable condition will continue to be available for sale and will be eligible for Amazon Prime and free shipping.

If you remove units of an ASIN that would be subject to long-term storage fees at the next inventory cleanup date, you won't be able to send us more units of that ASIN for three months after that date. The exception is your inventory of that ASIN falls below our projection of its sales for the next eight weeks.

Three months after the inventory cleanup date: Restrictions based on removals are lifted at this point. For example, if you remove inventory before the February 15 inventory cleanup—between January 16 and 11:59 p.m. (PT) on February 14 — you’ll be able to send more units of that ASIN to fulfillment centers starting on May 15 (unless your ability to send units of that ASIN has been restricted for another reason). For example, if you remove inventory before the September 15 inventory cleanup — between August 16 and 11:59 p.m. (PT) on September 14 — you’ll be able to send more units of that ASIN to fulfillment centers starting on December 15 (unless your ability to send units of that ASIN has been restricted for another reason).

Inventory level falls below sales projection: We base our projection of your sales of an ASIN for the next eight weeks on your average sales rate for that ASIN during the preceding 90 days. At any point that your inventory level for that ASIN falls below eight weeks of cover, the removal-based restriction is lifted and you can send more units to fulfillment centers.

Your inventory utilization for that ASIN may not exceed the preceding 90 days of sales, or about 13 weeks of cover. Inventory utilization is your in-stock inventory plus any inventory on its way to a fulfillment center, from creation of a shipment order to receiving at the fulfillment center.

As an example, if the ASIN you removed sold 180 units in the preceding 90 days, we would project your sales for the next eight weeks as 112 units based on this calculation: 180/90 (units sold/day) x 7 (days/week) x 8 (weeks).

If your inventory utilization fell below projected sales (112), you could send more units of that ASIN to an Amazon fulfillment center, up to the number sold in the previous 90 days (180). That is, if your inventory utilization fell to 111 units, you could send up to 69 more units to the fulfillment center (180 - 111 = 69).

The table below provides more examples of how much new inventory you can send to fulfillment centers after you’ve removed items subject to long-term storage fees.

For related information, see the links below:

• FBA Small and Light fee changes
• FBA fees reimbursement policy: Weight and dimensions
• Long-Term Storage Fee report
• Recommended Removal Report
• Inventory Health report
• Remove inventory (overview)
• Remove inventory automatically