Quick answer. A letter of authorization (LOA) is written permission from the owner of a brand’s intellectual property, or a party that owner authorized, allowing your business to use the mark or sell the product. Amazon may ask for one in a brand or category approval, when it believes your listing uses a trademark without approval, and in some IP complaint appeals. Amazon requires five terms (licensor, licensee, grant, geographic scope and term) on the rights holder’s letterhead with an authorized signature, or in an email from its own domain. Invoices, reseller agreements and purchase orders are not letters of authorization, and an LOA does not replace invoices. Amazon may contact the brand to validate the letter, so a forged or altered one puts the account at risk.

A brand approval application asks for “brand authorization letters (if applicable)”. An Account Health notice says a listing uses a trademark without permission. A supplier offers to “send you an LOA” as if it were a formality. In each case the seller has to prove something an invoice cannot show on its own, which is that someone with the right to say yes has said yes.

Know Your Invoices covers what a supplier invoice must show. Below is when Amazon wants a letter instead of or alongside invoices, what the letter must contain, how to request and verify one, and why a forged or edited letter can end an account.

This article is educational information, not legal advice. Licensing and trademark questions turn on facts and jurisdiction, so confirm your position with a qualified attorney before you rely on a license.

What a letter of authorization proves

An invoice proves a transaction, that a named supplier sold a named buyer a quantity of a product on a date. A letter of authorization proves permission, that the owner of a brand’s rights allows a named business to use those rights. Amazon asks these two questions in different situations.

Amazon’s own definition

Amazon’s Letter of authorization help page describes an LOA as a license agreement between the owner of a trademark, design patent or copyright and a third party, the licensee, authorizing that third party to use the intellectual property. The agreement outlines how the licensee may use the property, and a licensor can only grant rights it holds under the law. Most resellers miss that last point. A letter is only as good as the signer’s right to give it. A distributor with no authority from the brand cannot license the brand’s trademark to you, however official its letterhead looks.

Permission versus provenance

Amazon’s supplier due diligence page draws the same line. It suggests checking whether a supplier can provide a Letter of Authorization from the brand, or invoices from its own supplier, to show provenance, and recommends cross-verifying any LOA with the brand. A chain of invoices shows provenance. Authorization from the brand shows permission. A strong file usually has both.

Each document answers a different question. A complete file pairs the right ones for the request in front of you.

When a reseller needs a letter of authorization

Not every reseller needs an LOA, and asking every brand for one wastes goodwill you may need later. Read what the request in front of you asks for. Amazon uses the letter in three main situations.

Brand and category approvals

Amazon’s Categories and products that require approval page lists what to prepare before you apply, which is purchase invoices dated within 180 days, clear product photos showing all sides, brand authorization letters (if applicable), safety certifications when required, and commercial liability insurance documentation for certain categories. The words “if applicable” matter. Some gates clear with invoices, others require a link to the brand. To find out which, search the product in Add Products, select Apply to sell, and read the requirements under Show limitations. Amazon says review takes 2 to 7 business days, and a response reading “Your account does not qualify” cannot be appealed.

Trademark use on your listing

The Letter of authorization page opens with this scenario. When Amazon has reason to believe your listing uses a trademark without the owner’s approval, outside fair use or referential use, it may ask for proof that you own the trademark or a letter of authorization from the owner. That covers trademarks on the product, the packaging, the images or the detail page. This is a permission question, so an invoice cannot answer it.

IP complaint responses and appeals

Amazon’s Intellectual Property Policy gives different responses for different complaints. For trademark or counterfeit infringement on the product or packaging, you provide an invoice or Order ID through the Account Health dashboard to demonstrate authenticity. For trademark infringement on the detail page, you modify the page or, if you believe the listing was removed in error, appeal with supporting documentation such as a letter of authorization or licensing agreement. If you hold a license or other agreement with the rights owner who complained, Amazon says to ask them for a retraction, and your content may be reinstated once Amazon receives it. For multiple IP warnings, acceptable support includes invoices, Amazon order IDs, a court order, or “an authorization letter from the rights owner (cannot be a forwarded email)”.

For how these complaints are filed and processed, see what an intellectual property complaint is.

Five Amazon requests a reseller can receive, and only some ask for a letter of authorization. Open each one to see what it means and what answers it.

If this is already affecting your Amazon account, our Amazon suspension team can review the notice and prepare the response with you.

What Amazon says the letter must contain

Amazon’s Letter of authorization page is the standard to build against. It names five terms that must be present in every IP licensing agreement submitted to Amazon.

The five required terms

Licensor. The company or brand providing the rights to the intellectual property.
Licensee. The company or brand receiving the rights. This should be your exact legal entity as it appears in Seller Central.
Grant. The intellectual property being licensed and the scope of the rights granted.
Geographic scope. The territory or territories where use is authorized. Amazon notes this may be worldwide.
Term. How long the authorization lasts. Amazon notes this may be perpetual.

The page also says a license’s scope should be stated in terms of field and territory of use, and any right to sublicense must be spelled out. That matters when the letter comes from a distributor, which can pass on only what the brand granted it.

Format and signature checks

Amazon accepts PDF documents, scanned images of a PDF, Word (self declarations only if you are the IP owner), and screenshots of an email from the domain of the company holding rights to the brand. A document must carry that company’s letterhead, a body containing the necessary terms, an authorized signatory from the licensor company, and a signature, digital signature, stamp or seal. An email must come from a valid domain of the company holding the rights and contain the same terms.

What Amazon will not accept as an LOA

Amazon lists documents that are not acceptable as a letter of authorization. They include invoices, inventory documents, distribution rights and reseller agreements, receipts from online or physical retailers, order confirmations and packing slips, commercial or customs invoices, bills of lading, and sales orders, purchase orders, quotes or pro forma invoices. Resellers are often surprised, because a distribution agreement feels like stronger proof than a one-page letter. For this purpose it is not, because it does not set out the licensing terms Amazon checks. Amazon may also validate your letter by contacting the intellectual property owner you identify.

Element	What Amazon expects	Common failure
Licensor	The company holding the rights to the brand	A distributor signs as if it owned the mark
Licensee	The business receiving the rights	Trade name or personal name instead of the legal entity
Grant	The IP licensed and the scope of rights	“Authorized seller” with no rights described
Geographic scope	Territory where use is authorized	Territory missing, or a region that excludes your store
Term	Duration, which may be perpetual	Expired, or no term at all
Letterhead and signature	Rights holder’s letterhead, authorized signatory, signature or seal	Plain document, unsigned, or signed by an unrelated person
Email version	Sent from the rights holder’s own domain	Free webmail address, or a forwarded email

Three illustrative documents that decide whether an authorization holds up. Open each tab to see which part Amazon checks and where files usually fail.

What a letter of authorization cannot replace

The most expensive misunderstanding here is believing a good letter makes invoices unnecessary. It does not, and Amazon’s pages say so more than once.

Authenticity is proven with purchase records

Amazon’s Anti-Counterfeiting policy says Amazon may request documentation “such as invoices” showing the authenticity of your products or your authorization to list them. Its IP policy says counterfeit or trademark complaints on the product or packaging are answered with an invoice or Order ID. The invoice requirements page sets its own standard. It asks for supplier contact details, an issue date within the past 365 days before the notification, quantity sufficient to cover sales and in-stock inventory for each cited ASIN, clear product identifiers, and a completed transaction. A letter saying you may sell a brand says nothing about whether your units came from that brand’s supply chain.

A worked example

Take a hypothetical reseller, Harbor Lane Goods LLC. Its supplier, a regional distributor, provides a letter on the distributor’s own letterhead saying Harbor Lane is “authorized to sell” Brand X. Harbor Lane receives an authenticity complaint on two ASINs and submits the letter alone. It has sold 640 units of the two ASINs in the past year and holds 120 more in stock, but submits no invoices. The appeal fails twice. Nothing in the file shows a single unit was bought, the letter was not signed by the company holding the rights, and it names no grant, territory or term.

The fix is not a better-looking letter. It is distributor invoices covering at least the 760 units sold and in stock (hypothetical figures, for illustration), plus the brand’s written confirmation of the distributor relationship if it is real. Our guide to Amazon invoice requirements walks through each invoice field.

A hypothetical reseller answers an authenticity complaint twice with a letter alone, then with a full file. Compare each row to see what was missing.

How to request a letter of authorization from a brand or distributor

How you ask shapes whether you get a usable letter. Brands get vague requests constantly and either ignore them or send a generic note that fails Amazon’s checks.

Start with the right party

Ask the party that holds the rights, or one it authorized to grant them, usually the brand owner’s legal, licensing or channel team. If you buy from a distributor, ask whether it is an authorized distributor and whether it may sublicense. Amazon’s due diligence page suggests confirming the supplier’s status with the brand and contacting the brand directly about the relationship. A letter from a distributor with no authority from the brand may not satisfy a request for the rights owner’s permission.

Say exactly what you need

Name your exact legal entity, the products or ASINs, the store where you sell, the purpose (for example, a brand approval or a trademark appeal), and the five terms Amazon expects. Ask for it on company letterhead with an authorized signatory, or as an email from the company’s own domain, with the signatory’s name and title shown so it can be verified. Never send the brand a draft letter with its logo already applied. A checklist of required elements is fine. Preparing the brand’s letterhead for it invites the exact doubt you are trying to avoid.

A letter of authorization passes through several parties before Amazon reviews it. Tap each station to see who can say yes and what to check there.

How to verify the signer and the brand owner

Amazon may validate your letter by contacting the IP owner. Verify it yourself first, because a weakness you find now is cheaper to fix than one Amazon finds. Check three things, the mark, the company, and the person who signed.

Check the trademark owner in USPTO records

The USPTO’s trademark search page links to Trademark Search for finding marks and to Trademark Status and Document Retrieval (TSDR) for status and documents. In TSDR you enter an application serial number or registration number, then select Status or Documents. Search the brand name, open the matching record, and read the owner information and status. If the licensor is not the owner shown, find out why before you submit. A parent licensing through a subsidiary, for example, should be explained in the letter.

Check for ownership changes

Brands are bought and sold. The USPTO calls a transfer of ownership an assignment, recorded and searchable through Assignment Center. Recording does not always update TSDR automatically, and the USPTO suggests checking the “Current Owner(s) Information” section about a week after recordation. If the licensor differs from the owner TSDR shows, check Assignment Center for a recorded transfer before you conclude anything.

Check the company and the signer

Amazon’s due diligence page suggests verifying business registration through Secretary of State websites and state business lookup tools. The National Association of Secretaries of State keeps a directory of state business registration pages. Use it to confirm that the licensor and any distributor are active registered entities whose names match the letter exactly. Then confirm the signatory. Contact the brand through details you find yourself on its own website, not the numbers printed on the letter, and ask them to confirm that the named person signed it and holds that role. Keep that confirmation with the letter.

Question	Where to check	What to look for
Does the request need an LOA?	Add Products, Apply to sell, Show limitations, or the Account Health notice	Whether brand authorization is listed, or the notice cites trademark use
Who owns the mark?	USPTO Trademark Search, then TSDR by serial or registration number	Owner name and live status for the brand
Has ownership changed?	USPTO Assignment Center and TSDR Current Owner(s) Information	A recorded assignment that explains a different licensor
Is the licensor a real, active company?	State business search through the NASS directory	Exact legal name, active status, matching address
Did the named person sign?	Brand contact details you find independently	Written confirmation of the signatory and role
Is my supplier authorized?	The brand directly, plus the supplier’s own documents	Brand confirmation of the distributor relationship
Will the letter pass Amazon’s checks?	Amazon’s Letter of authorization help page	All five terms, letterhead, authorized signature, accepted format
Do invoices cover the units?	Amazon’s invoice requirements page and your sales records	Dates, quantities and identifiers matching each cited ASIN

Seven checks decide whether a letter of authorization will hold up at Amazon. Toggle the ones your file meets to see how ready it is.

Why a forged or altered letter ends accounts

Some sellers treat the letter as a formality. They make their own, add their company name to a distributor’s letter, or move an old date forward. Amazon’s policies explain why this is the most damaging thing a seller can do with this document.

What Amazon’s policies say

Amazon’s Anti-Counterfeiting policy says you may remove pricing information from documents, but “providing documents that have been edited in any other way or that are misleading is a violation of this policy and will lead to enforcement against your account.” The same policy says that if you sell inauthentic products, Amazon may suspend or terminate your selling account and any related accounts, dispose of inauthentic inventory in its fulfillment centers at your expense, and withhold payments. The invoice requirements page adds that any document you provide must be authentic and unaltered, and Amazon might contact the supplier to verify it. The Letter of authorization page says Amazon may validate the letter with the IP owner.

Why it is so easy to catch

An invented letter fails at the first phone call. When Amazon contacts the brand you named, the brand has no record of you or confirms it never granted the rights. From then on the question is whether anything in your file can be trusted, not whether you may sell one brand, and that doubt follows every later appeal. Our guide on forged or manipulated documentation suspensions covers how these cases unfold.

Small edits count

Sellers sometimes think a cleanup is harmless, such as fixing their company name, cropping a stamp or retyping a blurry letter. Amazon allows removing prices and nothing else. If a letter has an error, the brand must issue a corrected one. If a scan is poor, get a better scan of the original.

Five documents a reseller might send, and only two are letters of authorization. Open each one to see what it proves and where it fits.

What to do when the brand will not give you a letter

Many brands do not issue letters to resellers, and distributors cannot grant what the brand never gave them. The honest response depends on what the request needed.

If the gate requires brand authorization

If Show limitations requires authorization and the brand will not provide it, you cannot clear that gate honestly as things stand. No quantity of invoices meets a brand authorization requirement. The real choices are to build a relationship the brand recognizes, for example by buying through a distributor the brand confirms, or to accept the gate and focus on brands that will approve you.

If the problem is trademark use on your listing

Without a license, the corrective action is to change the listing. Remove the brand’s marks from your images, titles and content wherever your use goes beyond referring to the genuine product you sell, then appeal from Account Health explaining what you changed. If you never had a relationship with the complaining owner, do not claim one.

If the notice questions authenticity

Here the missing letter matters least. Amazon needs purchase proof that meets its invoice standard. If you cannot produce genuine invoices from a legitimate source, change your sourcing going forward. Never create documents for purchases that did not happen. See the dangers of selling unauthorized brands on Amazon.

Approval or appeal stuck on a letter?

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Building the appeal around the letter

In an appeal, the LOA is evidence inside a plan of action, not a substitute for one. Reviewers want to know what went wrong, what you already fixed, and what stops it happening again.

Diagnose before you write

Start from the notice, which gives the exact policy cited, the ASINs and the documents requested. Then audit your file against each criterion. Check that the letter carries all five terms, that the licensor matches the USPTO owner and the licensee matches your legal entity, and that invoices cover the cited ASINs and quantities. Answering the wrong criterion is the most common reason these appeals keep coming back denied.

Root cause, corrective action, prevention

The root cause should be specific. For example, “we relied on a distributor’s letter that did not come from the trademark owner and did not state a grant or term.” Corrective actions are what you have already done, with proof, such as obtaining a letter from the owner shown in TSDR, confirming the signatory with the brand, gathering invoices matching each ASIN, and editing listing content that went beyond referential use. Preventive controls name an owner and a date. For example, “from [date], our purchasing lead verifies every new brand’s owner in TSDR and obtains brand confirmation of distributor status before the first order. Letters are reviewed against Amazon’s five terms before any listing goes live.”

Submit through the right channel

Amazon directs IP appeals to the Account Health page, where you select Submit appeal next to the violation. Selling applications are managed from Selling Applications. Never forward the brand’s email as the letter. Reference each attachment where it does its work, and attach only originals you can produce.

For structuring the plan itself, see a winning plan of action.

A repeatable routine for your authorization file

Sellers who rarely struggle with these requests build authorization into onboarding a brand instead of scrambling after a notice.

Before the first purchase

Look up the brand in USPTO Trademark Search and TSDR and save the owner and status. Check the supplier through the state business search. Ask the brand whether the supplier is authorized and whether it issues letters to resellers, and record the answer.

When a letter arrives

Check the five terms, letterhead, signatory and format against Amazon’s page. Confirm the signatory with the brand using contact details you found yourself. Save the original file and the message it came in, unedited, in a folder per brand alongside the invoices for that brand.

On a schedule

Review each active letter before its term ends, and recheck TSDR and Assignment Center when a brand is acquired. When something changes, request a new letter from the brand rather than adjusting the old one.

If your file keeps failing and you are not sure which criterion is the problem, our Amazon inventory reconciliation service audits invoices, letters and sales records against the exact request before anything is submitted.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is a letter of authorization on Amazon?

Amazon describes it as a license agreement in which the owner of a trademark, design patent or copyright authorizes a third party to use that intellectual property. For resellers, it is written permission from the rights owner, or a party it authorized, naming your business.

Can an invoice be used as a letter of authorization?

No. Amazon lists invoices, purchase orders, order confirmations, retail receipts and pro forma invoices among documents that are not acceptable as a letter of authorization.

Can I forward the brand’s approval email?

Amazon’s IP policy says an authorization letter from the rights owner cannot be a forwarded email. Amazon’s LOA page accepts a screenshot of an email sent from the rights holder’s own domain that contains the required terms.

How do I check who owns a brand’s trademark?

Search the mark in USPTO Trademark Search, then open the record in TSDR using the serial or registration number. Check Assignment Center for recorded ownership transfers if the owner differs from the letter.

What happens if I submit an altered letter?

Amazon’s Anti-Counterfeiting policy says documents edited in any way other than removing prices, or that are misleading, violate the policy and will lead to enforcement against your account.

What if the brand refuses to give me a letter?

Then a gate that requires brand authorization cannot be cleared honestly for now. Source through a channel the brand recognizes or focus on brands that will approve you. Never create a letter yourself.

Get Help With Letters of Authorization and Brand Approvals

If an approval keeps getting denied, or a notice asks for documents you are not sure you hold, we review your notice, letters and invoices against the exact request and tell you plainly what is missing. You can submit your case or book a consultation.

Got Suspended? provides consulting and educational information, not legal advice, and no outcome or timeline is guaranteed. Amazon’s policies change, so confirm current requirements in Seller Central before you submit.

You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

When Amazon Resellers Need a Letter of Authorization and How to Verify It