Amazon FBA reimbursements: what Amazon owes you for lost and damaged stock, and how to claim it

Every FBA seller loses some stock. Units go missing in a fulfilment centre, get damaged on a conveyor, disappear on the way back from a customer, or never arrive on a removal order. Amazon’s policy is that if your item is lost or damaged at a facility or by a carrier operated by or for Amazon, it replaces the item or reimburses you¹. The rules about how, how much and how quickly changed sharply in 2025, and many sellers are still working to the old ones. This guide covers the UK policy as it stands on 1 October 2026. For the fees FBA charges in the first place, start with our Amazon FBA fees guide.

What changed in 2025

Three changes reshaped FBA reimbursements in the UK:

• Automation, from 15 January 2025. Amazon began reimbursing FBA items lost in its fulfilment centres as soon as they are reported lost, and said almost all warehouse lost and damaged and customer return cases would be reimbursed proactively⁸.
• Shorter claim windows, from 9 January 2025. Manual claims moved to fixed windows, mostly 60 days, replacing the much longer periods sellers were used to⁸.
• Sourcing-cost valuation, from 31 March 2025. Stock lost or damaged before a customer orders it is reimbursed at your sourcing cost, managed on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page⁹¹.

The result is that most of the money now arrives without a claim, but the part that doesn’t has a short shelf life, and every reimbursement is worth less than a sale.

What Amazon reimburses automatically, and what you must claim

The windows come from Amazon’s claim pages for each stage: inbound², fulfilment centre operations³, customer returns⁴⁵ and removals⁶. One inconsistency to note: the removals page says lost-in-transit claims must be filed within 74 days of creation, while its own table and Amazon’s announcement say 75⁶⁸. Work to 74.

Before any claim, every unit must meet the basic eligibility rules: registered in FBA when lost, compliant with FBA product restrictions and inventory requirements, sent in the exact quantities on your shipping plan, not defective or customer-damaged, and not pending disposal. Your account must also be in normal status when you file¹.

How reimbursement value is calculated

Amazon values a lost or damaged unit in one of two ways, depending on when it happened¹.

Before a customer orders it (inbound, in the warehouse, or on a removal), Amazon pays your sourcing cost: what you paid a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or your cost to produce it. Sourcing cost excludes shipping, handling, customs duties and other costs. If you have not entered a sourcing cost, Amazon uses its own estimate, built from comparable products. Units that were already unsellable are reimbursed at a reduced estimate¹.

After a customer orders it (customer returns), the value is based on the refund or replacement given to the customer:

Three limits apply to every claim. The maximum for a single unit is £2,000, and Amazon suggests third-party insurance for anything worth more¹. Amazon can reverse a reimbursement if the unit is later found and returned to your inventory¹. And Amazon may sell reimbursed units, including through Amazon Warehouse¹.

The sourcing-cost rule is the one that costs sellers money without them noticing. If Amazon’s estimate is lower than your real cost, every automatic reimbursement is short. Amazon may decline a submitted cost that looks like an outlier or is badly documented, and it periodically refreshes its estimates and tells you when that affects a cost you entered¹. Keep factory invoices for every SKU so you can support the figure.

Customer returns that never come back

When Amazon refunds a customer for your FBA order, your account is debited. If the customer then returns the item to a fulfilment centre within 45 days and it is sellable, it goes back into your stock and there is no reimbursement. If it is unsellable, Amazon decides who is responsible: Amazon, the customer, or a defect⁴.

Amazon accepts responsibility, and reimburses automatically, in three cases: the customer does not return the item within 45 days of the refund; the item is lost in transit to or from the customer; or what comes back is not authentic or is a completely different product⁴. It does not reimburse returns damaged by the customer, defective items, recalled items, items that arrive in a damaged or different box or without a factory seal, or any refund you issued yourself⁴.

If you think an automatic reimbursement is missing, the claim window opens 45 days after the refund and closes at 105 days⁵. If you disagree with how Amazon graded a return, you must first get the unit back with a removal order, then claim within 60 days of that delivery⁶.

Inbound shipment discrepancies

Inbound shortfalls are where we see the most money left unclaimed, because nothing about them is automatic. You can claim only once the shipment shows as eligible for investigation on the Contents tab, and no later than six months after verified delivery to the fulfilment centre². A shipment becomes eligible only when it is Closed, and Amazon says reconciliation usually takes 2 to 30 days, sometimes up to 60¹⁰.

To claim, you need the shipment ID, proof of ownership (a supplier invoice showing the date, matching product names and quantities, or a signed packing slip if you manufacture), and proof of delivery: an Amazon-stamped proof of delivery with box count and weight for pallets, or active tracking IDs for small parcels². Amazon accepts only one claim per shipment², and it does not accept pro forma invoices or editable files¹⁰.

One status ends the conversation: if a line shows Investigation completed, shipment contents counted and confirmed, Amazon physically counted the units on receipt, and missing units are treated as short-shipped with no reimbursement unless you can help locate them¹⁰. That is why the box count, weights and contents you give in Send to Amazon matter so much, and why a labelling mistake can turn into stock received under an “Amazon.Found” SKU rather than a lost unit¹⁰. Our FBA prep guide covers how to avoid both.

Removal orders

Removal claims are always manual⁸. For a removal lost in transit, wait at least 15 days from the last confirmed movement, then claim with the shipment ID and tracking or proof of delivery. For damaged units, wrong items or short deliveries, claim within 60 days of delivery, with the removal order ID, FNSKU, photos of the unit and the box, and the shipping labels⁶. Photograph every removal delivery as you open it; most of the evidence Amazon asks for can only be captured on that day.

A worked month

Of £332.60 in total, £173.60, more than half, arrives only if someone files a claim inside the window. And even the full amount does not make the business whole. Each of the 40 units lost before an order was reimbursed at £6.20 against a £7.40 landed cost, so £48 of freight and duty is gone for good, before counting the margin on sales missed if the product ran short. Judged on net profit, the best reimbursement is the one you never need. Our inventory management playbook shows how to build that loss into safety stock, and the Profit X-Ray shows what each product leaves you after fees.

A monthly reconciliation routine

This is the routine we run on the accounts we manage. It is our practice, not an Amazon requirement, and it fits inside the 60-day windows with room to spare.

A few details make the routine easier. The Inventory Ledger holds 18 months of history and works best filtered by FNSKU⁷. Units under investigation show as Researching for no more than 60 days before they are found or reimbursed, and reimbursements can take 4 to 5 business days to post⁷. Don’t file claims for units still being researched: Amazon says premature or insufficiently researched requests, or large numbers of requests in a short time, can delay your support and lead to monitoring or account action¹.

Reimbursements are a recovery, not a profit line. If the monthly check keeps finding the same losses, the fix is upstream: in how you prep, pack and route stock into Amazon’s network. Our guide to Amazon fulfilment centre locations explains how that routing works.