Amazon rule changes for resellers: what changed, and what to do

The change log

This is the short version. Each row says what changed, when it takes effect, what it means if you resell other brands' products, what to do, where Amazon says it, and which of our guides goes deeper. Newest first, with announced changes that have not started yet at the top.

The rest of this page explains each group of changes in plain words, with Amazon's own wording where it matters.

Labels and prep

Two changes landed on the same step of your process, a few months apart.

The first: starting January 1, 2026, Amazon stopped offering prep and item labeling for FBA shipments in the US store. Its FBA Prep Service page says all products must now be prepped and labeled before they reach Amazon, and that shipments created after January 1 which arrive without proper prep and labeling are not eligible for reimbursement if units are damaged or untraceable. Amazon also told developers that "AMAZON" is no longer accepted as the prep owner or label owner in the Selling Partner API changelog. Your choices are doing it yourself or paying a prep center.

The second is the end of commingling.

Commingling was Amazon filling your order with an identical unit from whichever seller's stock was closest. Amazon's barcode FAQ answers the questions resellers ask most. It needs a Seller Central sign-in and we could not open it to check its wording, so look these up there before you rely on them:

• Who can skip the sticker. Amazon's notice limits it to the Brand Representative role. The FAQ sets out which products qualify. Being an authorized reseller is not the same thing.
• What happens to unlabeled units. PPC Land reported that Amazon treats them as defective and does not reimburse them.
• Stock already at Amazon. Whether stickerless units that arrived before March 31, 2026 keep selling under their original SKU. Every new shipment needs Amazon barcodes either way.
• Reviews when you switch SKUs. Whether reviews stay with the ASIN if you create a new SKU to switch a product to Amazon barcodes.
• Low-inventory fees during the switch. Whether Amazon waives them on affected ASINs while you sell down stickerless stock.

What to do:

1. Treat an FNSKU label as part of every unit's cost, the same as the product itself. Our FNSKU labels guide covers label size and placement, and who can do the labeling for you.
2. If you send stock through a prep center, confirm in writing that it labels every unit and preps to Amazon's requirements. Our prep center guide covers how to choose one and what to ask before you sign.
3. Add prep time to your lead time. From Stef's lesson (Restocking, 0:31 to 0:58): he counts lead time as the supplier's days to deliver, plus the days the prep center needs to label and prepare everything, plus the trip to Amazon. With Amazon labeling nothing in the US, those prep days are now part of every reorder.

Fees

Amazon published its yearly fee update with an effective date of January 15, 2026 for most changes. Its 2026 letter to sellers puts the average FBA increase at $0.08 per unit sold, "less than 0.5% of an average item's selling price," and says there are no new FBA fee types in 2026. The detail is on Seller Central pages that need a sign-in, which we could not open to check. The average hides a lot of movement product by product, so here is what changed for the fees a reseller pays most:

• Fulfillment fees for standard-size products changed by price band, with different increases below $10, from $10 to $50, and above $50, and the bulky tiers were split into Small Bulky and Large Bulky. Amazon's 2026 fee changes summary has the averages. Our size tiers and fulfillment fees guide explains how to read the table.
• The low-inventory-level fee is reported to be measured for each FNSKU instead of across the parent ASIN, to apply to bulky items, and to exempt Grocery (AMZ Prep's reporting, in our storage fees guide). We could not check Amazon's own low-inventory-level fee page. When the fee launched in 2024, an Amazon staff post said it applies only when both the short-term and long-term days of supply are under 28 days. If you sell food, our Grocery guide covers what else is different there.
• Shipments that go wrong (never arrive, arrive late, or go to the wrong building) now pay a single inbound defect fee instead of both a placement fee and a defect fee.

What to do: rerun the fees on every product before you reorder it, not just new ones. The free profit calculator works out profit, ROI and the most you can pay a supplier once you enter the fees, and our fees guide explains every line. Placement deserves its own look, because it depends on how you build each shipment: see the inbound placement fee guide. When Amazon publishes its next yearly update, it goes on the fee changes page and into this log.

Payouts

DD+7 is Amazon's standard reserve policy for when your sale money becomes available. Amazon's payments help page explains it this way: funds are held until the shipment is delivered, plus seven days. Its own example is an item sold on January 1 and delivered on January 6, which becomes available for disbursement starting January 14. Amazon also says the reserve period can be longer for some accounts, based on its assessment of risk and past performance.

What it means for a wholesale seller: the money from this week's sales pays for next month's order later than you might expect. Between the day a unit ships, the day it is delivered and the seven days after, a fast seller can have a week or more of revenue in Amazon's hands at any time. Plan your first orders and reorders with that gap in mind. Our startup cost guide shows how to budget for it.

To see what is held and when it is released, go to Payments in Seller Central, open the Transaction view and filter for Deferred transactions. Amazon lists each held amount with its expected release date.

Approvals and listings

Getting approved to sell a brand or category still runs through Apply to sell. What changed is who can create listings, and how much a brand can decide about them.

For most wholesale buyers this is fine, because you sell on listings the brand or another seller already created. It matters in three situations:

• You want to list a product that is not on Amazon yet. If the brand is in Brand Registry, you need a selling role from the brand first. Ask your distributor whether the brand assigns roles to authorized resellers.
• You make bundles or multipacks. Amazon has announced that from January 11, 2027, bundles in most categories must be configurations packaged by the manufacturer or brand. Bundles you assemble yourself can be suppressed unless you hold a valid letter of authorization from the brand. This rule has applied to consumables since late 2024, according to Amazon's program policy changes page.
• A brand discontinues a product or takes tighter control of its listings. A listing you depend on can change or close without anything changing in your own account. Paperwork in a drawer does not keep a brand on your side; a working relationship with the brand or its authorized distributor does.

What to do: keep a clean paper trail for every brand you buy, and get a letter of authorization where it opens a door. Our letter of authorization guide covers when you need one and what it should say. For approvals themselves, start with the ungating guide, and check your invoices against the ungating invoice requirements.

The Featured Offer eligibility change

The Featured Offer is the offer that gets the Add to Cart button on a product page, still widely called the Buy Box. Amazon announced that, starting in July 2026, it would remove the separate seller eligibility requirement, rolling out gradually and finishing by the end of 2026, with no action needed from sellers. Before, Amazon first decided which sellers were eligible, then ranked their offers. Now there is only the ranking: Amazon's US help page says that since September 2026 offers from all sellers are eligible to be evaluated.

What did not change is how the winner is picked. Amazon's Becoming the Featured Offer page lists what it weighs:

• Total price, meaning the item price plus any shipping fee.
• Delivery speed, and how specific the delivery promise is.
• Free shipping and free returns.
• Seller performance, including order volume, chargeback rate and complaints in Voice of the Customer.
• Stock. An offer that is out of stock cannot be featured.

The same page says Amazon does not weigh customer reviews or star ratings, and that, all else being equal, Prime and non-Prime offers, and FBA and seller-fulfilled offers, are equally likely to be featured.

For wholesale sellers on shared listings, this mostly means more competition in the rotation. Sellers who were not eligible before now have their offers ranked too. Two habits matter more than before:

1. Know your floor. Work out the lowest price you will accept from your landed cost (unit cost, inbound freight, prep, labels, placement and Amazon's fees) before anyone starts lowering prices. A Featured Offer won at a loss is still a loss.
2. Watch the number. Business Reports in Seller Central shows your Featured Offer percentage for each product: the share of page views where your offer was the featured one. If it drops while your price has not changed, look at stock and seller performance first.

Seller performance links straight to your account health, which our account health guide covers.

Other 2026 changes that may touch you

These come from Amazon's Changes to program policies page. They matter to some resellers and not others.

• Liability insurance (November 2, 2026). Sellers with products in categories that have enhanced safety listing requirements, such as children's products, cosmetic and ingestible products, and lithium battery products, must carry commercial liability insurance covering those products, with at least $1 million per occurrence and in aggregate, even below the $10,000 a month in gross proceeds that triggers the general requirement. If you sell toys, supplements or beauty, check this now.
• Product titles (July 27, 2026). Titles are limited to 75 characters, with a new Item highlights field, for every product type except media. This matters only if you create or edit listings.
• Handling time (June 29, 2026). Seller-fulfilled SKUs must have accurate handling times. FBA offers are not affected.
• Business hour delivery (September 30, 2026). Seller-fulfilled orders to Amazon Business customers need a business hour delivery rate of 90% or higher. FBA offers are not affected.
• Safety certificates for imports (July 8, 2026). Amazon's CPSC filing page explains that importers of regulated consumer products must file certificate data electronically at entry. It applies to you only if you import those products yourself, for example buying straight from a factory overseas.

What did not change

A year of changes can make it feel like everything moved. A lot did not.

• Wholesale is still a normal way to sell on Amazon. Amazon's own guide still walks sellers through buying from wholesalers and keeping their invoices.
• Approvals still run on invoices. Amazon's public wholesaler guide still describes invoices dated within the last 180 days (the box below). Its Seller Central approval page, which needs a sign-in and which we could not open to check, lists what each category asks for.
• Referral fees. Amazon's 2026 letter announces no change to referral fee percentages. Our referral fee guide has the full table.
• No placement fee on Amazon-optimized splits. Choosing Amazon-optimized splits still avoids the placement fee. PPC Land has reported a minimum of five identical cartons or pallets per item for them; go by what Send to Amazon offers you.
• How the Featured Offer is chosen. Amazon says the selection method is the same. Only the eligibility gate went away.
• Your gated categories. The categories and products that require approval still work through Apply to sell in Add Products, with Show limitations telling you what Amazon wants.

How we keep this page current

This page is a living log. Here is how it stays current:

• Amazon's own US pages come first. A change goes in the table only once we can link Amazon's US page or announcement for it. We read those pages when we update this log; a Seller Central page that needs a sign-in, or that we could not open, is marked in the Sources list at the end.
• Third-party reports are labeled. When a date or detail comes only from trade press or another seller, the table says "reported" and the details sit in a box marked Reported, with the publisher named. They are never presented as Amazon's rule.
• Dates are effective dates. The date in each row is the date Amazon gives for the change, not the date we noticed it. When Amazon gives no date, the row says so.
• We watch the same places you can. Amazon's Changes to program policies page, the yearly fee change summary, News_Amazon posts on the US Seller Forums, and the Selling Partner API changelog.

Our full rules for sources, corrections and reviews are on the editorial policy page. If you spot a change we missed, or a row that is out of date, tell us and we will check it against Amazon's page.

New to all of this? The roadmap shows where each change fits, from your first supplier to your first restock.