Short version: Amazon owes you money for inventory it loses or damages, inbound shipments it under-receives, customer returns that never come back, and fulfillment fees inflated by a wrong size tier. Since October 2024 the filing windows are short — 60 days for lost/damaged claims, 60 to 120 days for customer returns — and since March 2025 the payout is based on your sourcing cost, not your selling price. Most warehouse losses are now reimbursed automatically; what's left is the set your Reimbursements report won't flag on its own.

FBA sellers lose money to fulfillment errors every week and most never see it back, not because Amazon refuses to pay, but because the claim windows are short, the value calculation changed twice in the last year, and the evidence lives across four different reports. This guide covers what Amazon actually owes you, exactly how long you have to ask for it, how the payout is calculated in 2026, and how to check for it yourself before the clock runs out.

What FBA reimbursement actually covers

Amazon's FBA inventory reimbursement policy pays out — by replacement or by credit — when an item registered in FBA is lost or damaged at a facility or by a carrier Amazon operates or contracts, provided the item complies with FBA requirements and wasn't damaged by a customer. In practice, that policy plus the adjacent fee-audit process covers four distinct situations:

  • Lost or damaged in a fulfillment center. Units go missing or get damaged after Amazon receives them and before they're shipped to a customer.
  • Inbound shipment shortfalls. You ship 500 units to a fulfillment center and Amazon's receiving count comes up short — filed as a "shipment to Amazon" claim.
  • Refunded, never returned. A customer gets a refund or replacement, but the item never comes back to your inventory and no reimbursement follows automatically.
  • Fulfillment fee overcharges from a wrong size tier. Amazon measures — and periodically re-measures — your product itself. A bad scan can bump a SKU into a bigger, more expensive size tier, and every order gets overcharged until someone catches it.

The first three run through Amazon's official reimbursement claim types (fulfillment center operations, shipment to Amazon, customer returns, and removals). The fourth is a separate fee dispute, not a reimbursement claim, and it runs on its own timeline — more on that below.

The claim windows: 60 days, then 60 to 120 days

Amazon shortened its reimbursement eligibility windows on October 23, 2024, replacing a policy that had given sellers up to 18 months to file. Two windows now apply, straight from Amazon's own seller-forum policy announcement:

  • Fulfillment center operations claims (lost or damaged after receiving) must be filed within 60 days of the item being reported lost or damaged.
  • Customer return claims can only be filed between 60 and 120 days after the customer's refund or replacement date — not sooner, so Amazon has time to see whether the item actually comes back, and not later, or the claim closes.

The clock starts on the event date, not the day you happen to notice it. A unit lost on a Tuesday is unclaimable 60 days later whether you looked at the Reimbursements report that week or not at all — which is the core argument for checking on a schedule rather than once a year.

There's a separate, easy-to-confuse 60-day window: if Amazon does reimburse you but you think the amount is wrong, you have 60 days after the reimbursement was issued to dispute the valuation through Seller Central's Get Help flow. That's a dispute-the-payout window, not a file-the-claim window — don't conflate the two when you're checking dates.

One piece of good news tucked into the same October 2024 update: starting November 1, 2024, Amazon began proactively reimbursing most fulfillment-center loss and damage cases as soon as they're reported, without you filing anything. That doesn't make manual checking obsolete — it changes what's left to check for: the cases the automation missed or undervalued, plus removals claims, which still require you to file.

How the payout is calculated since the 2025 change

This is the part sellers most often get wrong, because Amazon changed it mid-2025 and most advice online still describes the old method. As of March 31, 2025, reimbursement for inventory lost or damaged before a customer order (fulfillment center operations, shipment-to-Amazon, and removals claims) is based on your sourcing cost — what you paid a manufacturer, wholesaler, or reseller — capped at $5,000 per unit. That replaced the earlier method, which estimated your selling price from recent Amazon sale history.

You can submit your own sourcing cost with proof of value (a manufacturer or wholesale invoice, for example) on the "Manage Your Sourcing Cost" page in the Inventory Defect & Reimbursement portal. If you never submit one, Amazon estimates it from comparable products sold by you, other sellers, or through wholesale channels — an estimate that runs, by definition, on data it doesn't have visibility into for your specific supplier terms.

Customer-return claims are valued differently, because a different kind of money is at stake: Amazon reimburses the refund or replacement amount actually given to the customer, minus applicable fees — not a sourcing-cost estimate, since that money already left your account as a refund rather than as lost inventory.

Worked example — a $28 kitchen scale

Sourced for $6.50/unit. A fulfillment center reports 40 units damaged. Under the pre-2025 method, Amazon would have estimated reimbursement near the $28 selling price per unit. Under the current sourcing-cost method, without a submitted invoice Amazon estimates a comparable sourcing cost instead — likely well under the old selling-price estimate, and worth disputing with an actual wholesale invoice if the estimate looks low.

Meanwhile, 15 units get refunded to customers and never come back. That claim is valued at the $28 refund minus fees, filed between day 60 and day 120 after the refund date — a completely separate claim, on a separate window, valued a separate way.

The size-tier problem: not a reimbursement claim, a fee dispute

Amazon's fulfillment fee is set by your product's size tier, which Amazon determines by measuring the packaged unit itself — and it periodically re-measures without notifying you first. Sellers on Amazon's own seller forums have reported measurement errors that silently bumped a product from "small standard" to "large standard," or raised a per-order fulfillment fee well beyond what the listed dimensions justify, sometimes for months before anyone noticed. This isn't governed by the 60-day / 60-120-day windows above — it's a separate fee dispute you open under FBA Fees in Seller Central, where you compare your product's actual measured dimensions against the ones Amazon has on file and ask for a correction plus a refund of the recent overcharge. Because the burden of proof and the eligible lookback period are decided case-by-case, keep your own record of the correct package dimensions so you can act the moment a per-order fee jumps.

How to check for it yourself

You don't need a paid tool to start. The evidence lives in Seller Central:

  1. Pull the Reimbursements report (Reports → Fulfillment → Payments → Reimbursements) to see what Amazon has already paid you automatically.
  2. Cross-check against the Inventory Ledger and Inventory Adjustments report for units marked lost, damaged, or disposed of that don't have a matching line in the Reimbursements report.
  3. Check the Reconciliation report for inbound shipments where the received quantity fell short of what your shipping plan said you sent.
  4. Scan recent customer refunds against your inventory receipts to find refunds older than 60 days where the item never came back.
  5. Watch for a per-order fulfillment fee that jumped without a size or weight change on your end — that's the signal to compare Amazon's on-file dimensions against your own measurement.

Doing this by hand catches real money, but it's easy to let it slide past a 60-day window when you're running the rest of the business — which is the exact gap a weekly, automated sweep is built to close.

FBA reimbursement checklist

  • ☐ Pulled the Reimbursements report for the trailing 90 days
  • ☐ Cross-checked Inventory Ledger / Adjustments for unreimbursed lost or damaged units
  • ☐ Checked inbound Reconciliation reports for receiving shortfalls
  • ☐ Flagged refunds older than 60 days with no return and no reimbursement
  • ☐ Compared any jumped per-order fulfillment fee against your product's real dimensions
  • ☐ Filed within window — 60 days for lost/damaged, 60–120 days for customer returns

Find what Amazon owes you, before the window closes

OptimalCentral's Reimbursement Finder runs this cross-check every week on your connected account — Inventory Ledger, refunds, and payout history — and hands you ready-to-paste case text for every dollar it can't account for. It never files on your behalf and never touches your account; you paste the case and submit it yourself. 10% of what you actually recover, nothing otherwise.

See the Reimbursement Finder →

Reimbursement recovery only pays out once, but a listing that's fully optimized keeps the errors that cause it — mis-scanned dimensions, mismatched shipment counts — easier to catch early. Start with our Amazon Listing Audit checklist, or if you're also running ads, the Amazon PPC Audit checklist walks the same "audit by hand, then automate what repeats" pattern for wasted ad spend. For the wider toolset, see our roundup of Amazon SEO and listing tools.

Frequently asked questions

What is Amazon FBA reimbursement?

The money or replacement Amazon owes you when it loses or damages your inventory in its own fulfillment network, under-receives an inbound shipment, refunds a customer return that never comes back to your inventory, or overcharges a fulfillment fee because it measured your product's size tier wrong.

How long do I have to file an Amazon FBA reimbursement claim?

60 days from the loss or damage being reported for fulfillment-center claims, and between 60 and 120 days after the refund date for customer-return claims. Both windows took effect October 23, 2024, replacing an earlier 18-month policy, and the clock runs from the event date, not the day you notice it.

How does Amazon calculate my reimbursement amount?

Since March 31, 2025, pre-order losses (fulfillment center, shipment-to-Amazon, and removals claims) are reimbursed at your sourcing cost, capped at $5,000/unit — submit your own with proof of value, or Amazon estimates it from comparable products. Customer-return claims are valued at the refund or replacement amount minus fees instead, since that's the money that actually left your account.

Does Amazon reimburse FBA losses automatically?

Often, yes — since November 1, 2024, Amazon proactively reimburses most fulfillment-center loss and damage cases as soon as they're reported, visible in your Reimbursements report. What's left to check for is what that automation missed or undervalued, plus removals claims, which still need a manual filing.

What if Amazon put my product in the wrong size tier?

That's a separate fee dispute, not a reimbursement claim — Amazon measures and periodically re-measures your product itself, and a bad scan can raise your fulfillment fee on every order until it's corrected. You dispute it as an FBA Fees case in Seller Central by comparing your product's real dimensions against Amazon's records.

Does OptimalCentral file reimbursement claims for me?

No. The Reimbursement Finder never takes a write action on your account — it runs a weekly sweep, nets out what Amazon already paid, and hands you ready-to-paste case text with the dates, SKUs, and evidence Amazon asks for. You open the Seller Central case and file it yourself.