Amazon Transparency and Project Zero: what they do in the UK, what they cost and whether you need them

Counterfeits on Amazon cost a brand twice: the sale goes to the faker, and the review the disappointed customer leaves lands on your listing. Amazon offers two programmes to deal with them on top of Brand Registry. Transparency stops fakes before they are listed or shipped. Project Zero gives you the power to remove them yourself. This guide explains what each does in the UK, who qualifies, what they cost per unit, and how to decide whether they are worth it for your brand. Both sit on top of Brand Registry, which our UK Brand Registry guide covers from trade mark to enrolment.

What each programme does in the UK

Amazon’s own figures give a sense of scale. In its Trustworthy Shopping Experience Report, published in April 2026, Amazon says its proactive controls blocked more than 99.9% of suspected infringing listings before a brand had to report them, and that it seized and disposed of more than 15 million counterfeit products worldwide in 2025⁶. The tools below are for what gets through, and for the brands that want prevention rather than detection.

Transparency is available in 10 countries including the UK, and Amazon says more than 90,000 brands have enrolled and more than 2.7 billion units have been protected¹. Project Zero is available in more than 20 stores, the UK among them³.

How Transparency works

Each Amazon-issued Transparency code is a unique, non-sequential code printed as a small square barcode on the packaging, and Amazon keeps a record of every code and the product it was made for¹. You can apply codes as labels, design them into the packaging, or, in the UK, connect your own existing serial codes instead¹.

Amazon’s UK page describes each step¹. The operational review is not needed if you connect existing serial codes, and protection “isn’t active until after a product passes the operational performance review with 98% accuracy"¹. After that, all units must carry a valid code, and a code is required each time a new offer is created¹. Sellers who fulfil their own orders provide codes when they confirm each order; FBA units are scanned when they arrive¹.

What it stops goes beyond fakes. Amazon says Transparency checks can block authentic products that differ in “materials, compatibility, colour or language”, or that are made for other countries’ stores¹. For a UK brand whose products are also sold cheaper abroad, that matters. Protection is global: once enabled, it applies in every country where Transparency has launched¹.

Brands using Amazon-issued codes also get a Transparency badge on the product page, and customers can scan the code with the Amazon Shopping or Transparency app to check it is genuine. Brands connecting their own serial codes don’t get those two benefits¹.

How Project Zero works

Project Zero combines Amazon’s automated protections with a self-service tool. You search for counterfeit listings and remove individual offers or whole listings, and each removal also teaches Amazon’s automated protections³. You get access to the tool in each store where your brand has an active, registered trade mark linked to Brand Registry³.

The responsibility is real. Amazon says the tool “should only be used to remove counterfeit listings”, and defines a counterfeit as an unlawful reproduction of a registered trade mark, or a very similar mark, used to imply the product is genuine³. Brands “must maintain an accuracy rate of at least 99% in order to maintain access to Project Zero"³. Amazon recommends a test buy before you remove a suspected fake, and sends a notice of complaint to each seller affected by a removal³.

Amazon’s position is consistent across its pages: breaches of exclusive or selective distribution agreements “do not constitute intellectual property rights infringement”, and it won’t help enforce them⁵. Nor can you impose a resale price on resellers: the CMA treats limiting a reseller’s ability to advertise lower prices online as a form of resale price maintenance⁸. Our Amazon Buy Box guide explains what does work against undercutting resellers, and Amazon for manufacturers covers distribution agreements.

Who is eligible

The two programmes ask for different things, and neither is automatic.

For existing serial codes, Amazon also asks for unique codes 7 to 20 characters long for every unit of a GTIN or SKU, printed as scannable 1D, QR or 2D barcodes on the same side of the packaging as the GTIN, and the ability to share all serial numbers with Amazon¹.

Two points catch brands out. First, a pending trade mark gets you into Brand Registry but not into Transparency¹⁴. Second, a 90% acceptance rate is necessary but not sufficient for Project Zero: Amazon reviews other criteria and invites brands automatically once they qualify³. In our experience the fastest route in is a steady record of precise, well-evidenced reports, rather than a large volume of them.

What Transparency costs

In the UK, Amazon does not publish a price per code. Its UK page says only: “We charge for Amazon-issued codes and for existing serial codes that you share with us. We offer discounts based on volume.” There are no enrolment or subscription fees, no minimums per order and no charge for adding or removing products¹.

In the US, Amazon publishes its prices: $0.05 per code for 1 to 1,000,000 codes, $0.03 from 1,000,001 to 10,000,000, and $0.01 above that, with the volume tier resetting each year on the anniversary of your account². We don’t convert these into a UK price, because Amazon doesn’t. Get your quote from the Transparency portal.

The code is not the only cost. Budget for:

• Labels and printing, or packaging artwork changes if you design codes in.
• Application: labour on the line or in the warehouse, or a service provider.
• Every unit, not just Amazon’s. To use Amazon-issued codes you need “the ability to add codes to every unit you manufacture, regardless of where the units are sold"¹. If Amazon is a small share of your production, the cost per Amazon sale rises sharply.

Cost per unit against what it protects

The right question is not “what does a code cost?” but “what does protection cost per unit I sell on Amazon, and how many lost sales does that need to prevent?”

Read it two ways. If counterfeits or wrong-version units are visibly taking more than about 3% of your Amazon sales, or dragging down reviews and inflating returns, Transparency is cheap. If Amazon is a small share of a high-volume, low-price range with no counterfeit problem, the same programme is a tax on every unit you make. Enrol the products that are copied, not the whole catalogue: Amazon lets brands choose which products to serialise³.

The protection also reaches the Featured Offer. Amazon names authenticity, product condition and complaints such as “different product version” among the things it weighs in seller performance⁷. Removing fake and wrong-version offers protects both the sale and the listing’s reputation. Our Amazon Buy Box guide covers the rest of that picture.

How they fit with Brand Registry

Think of the three as layers, each needing the one below.

1. Brand Registry is the base. It gives you listing control, Report a Violation and the automated protections Amazon runs for every registered brand⁴. Our UK Brand Registry guide covers the trade mark, the timeline and enrolment.
2. Project Zero adds speed. After six months of accurate reporting, you can remove counterfeits yourself instead of waiting for each report to be reviewed³.
3. Transparency adds prevention. For the products that are copied, units without a valid code never reach a customer¹.

Amazon itself says the brands that combine Project Zero with Transparency “see the best results"³. In the accounts we manage, the order of work is usually: register the trade mark and enrol in Brand Registry; report infringements carefully for six months; then decide product by product whether serialisation is worth its cost per unit.

A checklist before you enrol

• Is your trade mark registered, not just pending? Transparency needs it¹.
• Do you have a GTIN for each product you want to protect¹?
• Can your factory or warehouse code every unit, including those sold elsewhere?
• What share of your production does Amazon take, and what is the cost per Amazon unit?
• Which products are actually being copied, or arriving in the wrong version?
• Who on your team will run Report a Violation and keep accuracy high enough for Project Zero?

If the problem is genuine stock sold cheaply rather than fakes, none of these tools will fix it. Start with Amazon for manufacturers and the reseller section of our Buy Box guide.