Amazon FBA reimbursements: what Amazon owes you and how to claim it

Amazon owes you money when it loses or damages your FBA inventory, when it refunds a customer who never sends the item back, when an inbound shipment is received short, and when it charges you the wrong fee. Some of that is paid automatically. The rest only shows up if you check and open a case, and as of September 2026 most claim windows are about 60 days, so a weekly look is the habit that pays.

What does Amazon owe FBA sellers?

Once your inventory is in Amazon’s network, it’s Amazon’s job to keep track of it. When that fails, you’re usually owed either a cash reimbursement or the units back in your sellable stock. The common buckets are:

• Lost or damaged in the warehouse. Units that go missing during storage or picking, or get damaged by Amazon’s staff or equipment.
• Customer returns that go wrong. The customer was refunded but never returned the item. Or the item came back to a fulfillment center but wasn’t added back to your inventory. Or the customer was refunded more than they paid.
• Inbound shipment discrepancies. You sent 500 units and Amazon only received 480, and you can show the other 20 were shipped.
• Fee overcharges. Most often a product measured or weighed wrong, which puts it in a bigger size tier and a higher FBA fulfillment fee on every unit.
• Removal order problems. You asked for units back and fewer arrived than Amazon says it sent.

None of these are rare. They’re a normal cost of a network that moves huge volumes. You just don’t want to be the one paying for them.

Which reimbursements does Amazon pay automatically?

Since late 2024, Amazon has proactively reimbursed most units it loses or damages inside its own fulfillment centers. You don’t file anything. The reimbursement shows up in your report with a reason code, and sometimes lost units turn up later, in which case Amazon takes the reimbursement back or adjusts your inventory.

Customer returns also have an automatic path. If a customer is refunded and the item isn’t returned within Amazon’s return window, Amazon is supposed to reimburse you on its own. In practice this doesn’t always trigger, which is why returns are one of the biggest sources of money sellers recover by hand.

Inbound shortages and fee errors are the least automatic. Amazon runs its own reconciliation on inbound shipments, but if the numbers still don’t match after that, it’s on you to raise it.

One big change to know: Amazon now values most lost and damaged inventory at your manufacturing or sourcing cost, not your selling price. That cost excludes things like freight and duties. Keep your unit costs accurate in Seller Central and keep supplier invoices handy.

How long do you have to file a claim?

This is where sellers lose the most money. In late 2024 Amazon shortened several windows sharply. As of September 2026, the main ones look like this:

Windows change, and they differ by claim type. Before you rely on any of the above, go to Seller Central, open Help and search “FBA inventory reimbursement policy.” The policy page lists every current window. The key point doesn’t change: if you only look at this once a quarter, some of what you’re owed will already have expired.

How do you check the Reimbursements report?

In Seller Central, go to Reports > Fulfillment and find the Reimbursements report (it sits with the payments reports). Pick a date range and download it. Each row shows the date, SKU, the reason, how many units, and whether you were paid in cash or had inventory returned to your stock.

What you’re looking for isn’t what’s in the report. It’s what’s missing from it. A simple weekly routine:

What does a missed reimbursement cost? A worked example

For example, say you sell one product with a sourcing cost of $8 and you move 1,500 units a month.

• Returns: 4% of orders are refunded (60 units). If 10% of those refunded customers never send the item back and the automatic reimbursement misses half of them, that’s 3 units a month, or $24 at cost.
• Inbound: one shipment of 1,000 units a month is received 1% short, 10 units, or $80.
• Fees: Amazon mismeasures the box and moves you up a size tier, adding $0.40 per unit. Across 1,500 units that’s $600 a month.

In this example, the returns and inbound items add up to about $100 a month. The fee error alone is $600. And every month you don’t catch it, the oldest month’s claim window moves closer to closing. That’s why fee checks deserve a spot in your routine even though they don’t look like “reimbursements” at first.

How do you open a reimbursement case?

Where you file depends on the claim type, and Amazon moves these entry points around. The reliable starting point is Seller Central Help: search the issue (for example “lost inbound shipment” or “FBA customer returns reimbursement”) and the Help page will link to the right form or tool. For inbound shipments, open the shipment itself in Send to Amazon and look for the reconciliation option.

Whatever the form, a good case is short and specific:

• Order ID, shipment ID or FNSKU, and the exact quantity.
• One sentence on what happened and what you want (“Customer was refunded on this date, item was not returned, please reimburse 1 unit”).
• For inbound claims: proof of delivery, the carrier tracking or bill of lading, and your packing list or invoice.
• For fee claims: your measured dimensions and weight, ideally with photos of the packaged unit on a scale and next to a tape measure.

If a case is closed without a fix, reply once with the missing detail rather than opening a new case from scratch. Keep a simple log of case IDs and dates so you don’t double-file.

What mistakes cost sellers reimbursements?

• Checking too rarely. With roughly 60-day windows, a quarterly review misses things.
• Filing too early. Inbound claims filed before day 15, or returns claims filed before Amazon’s automatic window runs out, often get rejected. Wait for the window to open.
• Stale unit costs. Since reimbursements are based on your sourcing cost, a wrong cost means a wrong payout.
• Sloppy inbound paperwork. Inbound claims are won with packing lists and proof of delivery. Keep them for every shipment. Our Send to Amazon shipment guide covers the habits that prevent shortages in the first place.
• Ignoring fees. A wrong size tier costs you on every unit. It rarely shows up as a “lost” anything, so it hides. It also quietly eats into your true profit per unit.

If you only do one thing after reading this, add a 20-minute reimbursement check to your week. Our weekly Amazon checklist shows where it fits alongside ads and inventory.