Amazon FBA fees explained (2026): every fee type and how it's calculated

Amazon takes more than 40 distinct fees out of a single settlement. Most sellers can name three of them. Below is every fee that touches your payout, how each is calculated, and the amount-description it shows up as in the settlement report. To see these applied to your own numbers, drop your report into the free SettleClear tool.

1. Referral fee (Commission)

A percentage of the item price — usually 8–15% depending on category, with a per-item minimum (typically $0.30). Charged on every unit sold. Appears as Commission under amount-type ItemFees. This is the single largest fee for most sellers.

2. FBA fulfillment fee (per unit)

A flat pick-pack-ship charge per unit, scaled by size tier and weight. A small standard item might be ~$3.20; oversized items climb fast. Appears as FBAPerUnitFulfillmentFee. If a SKU gets reclassified to a larger size tier, this jumps — and it's a common silent margin leak.

3. Monthly storage fee

Charged per cubic foot of space your inventory occupies, higher in Q4 (Oct–Dec). Appears as FBAStorageFee. Slow-moving inventory quietly erodes profit here.

4. Long-term / aged inventory surcharge

An extra charge on units stored beyond a threshold (typically 181+ or 271+ days). Appears as FBALongTermStorageFee or an aged-inventory surcharge. Often the first sign a SKU should be liquidated.

5. Refund administration fee

When you refund an order, Amazon returns most of the referral fee but keeps a refund administration fee (the lesser of $5.00 or 20% of the referral fee). Watch the net effect: a refund is revenue reversal plus a fee you don't get back.

6. Advertising (Cost of Advertising)

Sponsored Products and Brands spend. Critically, this is often billed to a card outside the settlement, so spreadsheets that only read the settlement miss it entirely — and overstate profit. SettleClear surfaces the Cost of Advertising lines that do appear so they aren't dropped.

7. Marketplace-facilitated tax (pass-through)

Sales tax Amazon collects and remits on your behalf. It appears as a collected amount and a withheld amount that net to roughly zero. This is not profit or loss and should be excluded from margin — a mistake many manual spreadsheets make.

The point: revenue is not profit

Once every fee above is subtracted and your cost of goods is added, a SKU that looked like a winner can be underwater. The only reliable way to know is to reconcile the actual settlement, line by line. See the full fee glossary, learn how to catch overcharges, or run your report now.