Quick answer. Under Amazon’s FBA inventory reimbursement policy, if an eligible item is lost or damaged at an Amazon facility or by a carrier operated by or for Amazon, Amazon replaces it or reimburses you. Each of the four claim routes has its own window. Shipment to Amazon claims run to nine months after verified delivery, fulfillment center losses to 60 days after the reported date, customer returns from 60 to 120 days after the refund, and lost removals from 15 to 75 days. Losses before a customer order are reimbursed at your sourcing cost, not your selling price. Reconcile the Inventory Ledger, the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal and the Reimbursements report before you file, and claim only units that are genuinely unaccounted for.

Every FBA seller loses inventory through short boxes, units missing inside a fulfillment center, or removals that come back incomplete. Amazon pays for many of these events automatically, but not all of them, and not always at the value the seller expects. Money is usually left on the table because nobody checked the reports, a window closed, or the seller could not prove what the goods cost.

The opposite failure costs as much. Sellers who file every discrepancy without checking whether Amazon already paid or found the units end up with denied claims, slower support and sometimes an account under watch. Customer refunds where the return never came back are covered in depth in our guide on FBA sellers who do not receive their return reimbursements, so this article only summarizes that route.

What Amazon’s FBA reimbursement policy covers

Amazon’s FBA inventory reimbursement policy starts with one promise. If an item you send to FBA is lost or damaged at a facility or by a carrier operated by Amazon or on Amazon’s behalf, Amazon replaces it with a new item of the same product or reimburses you for it. The Reimbursements report has separate columns for units reimbursed in cash and in inventory, so a claim can be paid without any money moving.

The eligibility conditions

Amazon’s policy requires all of the following. The item was registered in FBA when lost or damaged and complies with FBA product restrictions and inventory requirements. You sent the exact items and quantities in your shipping plan. The shipment is not canceled or deleted, and the item is not pending disposal, disposed of, defective or customer damaged. Your account is in normal status when you file and throughout review, including appeals.

The last condition catches sellers off guard. A deactivated account is not in normal status, so its claims may not be processed until the account issue is resolved.

What Amazon can take back, and the warning

Amazon reserves the right to reverse a reimbursement made in error, or one for an item later found and returned to your inventory, and may sell reimbursed items, including through Amazon Warehouse. Reversals appear in the Reimbursements report with an original reimbursement ID, so your reconciliation must account for them. The policy also prohibits activity that interferes with Amazon’s capacity to help other sellers, such as submitting insufficiently researched or premature requests, or a large number of requests in a short time. Sellers who repeatedly do this may receive delayed support on their cases or be subject to monitoring, investigation and account action.

See also Amazon IPI Score and FBA Capacity Limits and Amazon FBA Mistakes and Their Bitter Consequences.

The four claim routes and their windows

Amazon splits claims by where in the fulfillment process the item was lost or damaged. Each route has its own start date and evidence.

The windows start on different events, so a single “60 days” rule of thumb is wrong for most claims. Two routes also have a waiting period. A customer return claim filed on day 30 is premature, which is the conduct the policy warns about.

How Amazon values a reimbursed unit

Value depends on whether the loss happened before or after a customer ordered the item.

Before a customer order, sourcing cost

For shipment to Amazon claims, removal claims and fulfillment center operations claims that occur before fulfillment, Amazon reimburses the item’s sourcing cost. That is your cost to buy the product from a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or to produce it, excluding shipping, handling, customs duties and other costs. If the item was unsellable when it was lost, damaged or removed, Amazon reimburses at a reduced estimated cost and may ask for more information to set that value.

Enter your sourcing cost on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page in the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal. If you do not, Amazon uses its own estimate, built from comparable products. If you do, Amazon may ask for documents to validate it.

When Amazon declines your cost

Amazon may decline a sourcing cost that is an outlier against similar products or its estimate, documentation that is forged, tampered with or illegible, submissions from accounts suspected of fraud or significant violations, and a repeat request for the same item within 30 days of a decision without new information. If it declines your figure, it reimburses on a previously approved amount or its own estimate. You can dispute a reimbursement through the Get help page in Seller Central.

After a customer order, refund minus fees

For customer return claims, the value is the refund amount, or the price of the replacement item on the original order, minus applicable fees. If you disagree with the valuation, you can file a claim through Contact Us within 60 days after the reimbursement was issued.

The per-unit ceiling

The maximum reimbursement for a single unit of any FBA-eligible item is $5,000. Amazon recommends third-party insurance for items valued above that.

The reports you reconcile before any claim

Inventory Ledger report

Amazon’s fulfillment center operations claim page says lost or damaged items are reported in your Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal or your Inventory Ledger report. Use the ledger to trace a unit from receipt to sale, return, removal or adjustment, and to get the FNSKU and, for damaged units, the transaction item ID the claim tool asks for.

Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal

Amazon tells you to check the portal’s three tabs before filing. Eligible for claim lists the lost, damaged and customer-related defects you can claim, searchable by FNSKU or defect type. In progress lists defects Amazon is already investigating. Resolved lists defects Amazon has closed, with the resolution reason and any reimbursement amount. Do not claim an In progress defect again. Claim a Resolved defect only if you disagree with the decision, using the information on that tab.

Reimbursements report

The Reimbursements report itemizes all reimbursements, both the ones you requested and the ones generated automatically. Its fields include the reason (for example, Damaged. Warehouse), FNSKU, case ID, order ID, amount per unit, quantity reimbursed in cash, quantity reimbursed in inventory, and the original reimbursement ID when an earlier one is adjusted. Reimbursements also appear in the Payments report Transaction view.

Shipment reconciliation on the Contents tab

For inbound shipments, the reconciliation tool sits on the Contents tab of the shipment summary. Amazon’s Reconcile your shipment page explains that the discrepancy column shows units expected minus units located, and hovering over the located number shows whether units were received, reconciled, reimbursed or reallocated from another shipment.

Removal reports

For removals, use the Removal Order Detail report for order dates and status and the Removal Shipment Detail report for tracking IDs.

A worked reconciliation, start to finish

Reconciliation is bookkeeping, and numbers show it best. The figures below are hypothetical and illustrate the method only.

A seller ships 600 units of one FNSKU in a single shipment. The Contents tab shows 588 located, a discrepancy of 12. Months later, a stock count suggests another 30 units of that FNSKU are missing. A careless seller files for 42 units. A careful one reconciles first.

• The inbound 12. Hovering over the located number shows 4 units were reallocated from a sister shipment as “Received on shipment” and 2 were reconciled automatically. The supplier’s packing list shows only 596 were packed, so the honest answer for those 4 is Units not shipped. That leaves 2 genuine units.
• The 30 in storage. The Inventory Ledger shows 9 were removed to the seller’s warehouse on a removal order the seller had forgotten, 6 were customer returns put back into sellable stock, and 15 are shown as lost or damaged. Of those 15, the Reimbursements report shows 11 already paid automatically, 8 in cash and 3 in inventory. Two more are In progress in the portal.
• What is left. Two inbound units for a shipment claim, and two fulfillment center units on the Eligible for claim tab, both inside their windows.

The genuine claim is 4 units, not 42. The other 38 were never shipped, removed, resold, already paid or already under investigation. A pattern of claims like that is what Amazon’s warning about insufficiently researched requests targets.

Filing a shipment to Amazon claim

When the shipment is ready

Amazon says a shipment can be reconciled only when its status is Closed, and reconciliation usually takes 2 to 30 days, in some cases up to 60. Shipments created after February 1, 2024 close automatically after 45 days for domestic shipments and 75 days for international ones. Once a line shows as eligible for investigation, the shipment to Amazon claims page says you must file no later than nine months after the verified delivery date.

Answer the Action required options truthfully

Each line with a discrepancy shows Action required, and you must choose an option for every one before you can submit. The options are Units not shipped, Research missing units, Extra units shipped and Research extra units. If your supplier short-packed a carton, the correct answer is Units not shipped. Requesting research on units you did not ship is a claim for goods that never existed.

What to attach

Amazon’s claim page asks for three things.

• The Amazon shipment ID, found in your Shipping Queue.
• Proof of inventory ownership. Acceptable examples are an invoice from a supplier, a receipt from another seller or, if you are the manufacturer, a signed packing slip. The document must show the date of purchase, product names matching the lost or damaged items, and quantity.
• Proof of delivery. For less-than-truckload or full-truckload shipments, a proof of delivery showing the number of boxes and total weight at carrier pickup, stamped by Amazon to confirm it was received and signed for at the fulfillment center. For small parcel shipments, the active tracking ID for each package. If you did not use an Amazon partnered carrier and did not enter tracking when you created the shipment, you must enter it before you can be reimbursed.

The rules that end claims early

You may file only one claim per shipment, and additional claims for the same shipment are declined. Lines marked “Investigation completed” were physically counted and are no longer eligible for research. Sellers with many shipping problems may face monitoring that could affect Prime eligibility or delay future reimbursements. Our guide to Amazon inventory management mistakes covers accurate shipping plans.

Filing a fulfillment center operations claim

The fulfillment center operations claim covers items lost or damaged by Amazon after it received them. File no later than 60 days after the item was reported lost or damaged in the portal or the Inventory Ledger.

How to file

1. Open the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal and go to Eligible for claim. Filter by FNSKU or defect type.
2. Check In progress, Resolved and the Reimbursements report so you do not claim a defect already investigated or paid.
3. For damaged items, enter the transaction item ID in the claim tool. For lost items, enter the FNSKU. Both appear in the portal and the ledger.
4. Be ready to give the date or location of the loss, such as the fulfillment center ID, if Amazon asks.

The window starts on the reported date, not the day you notice, so a seller who reviews this tab quarterly loses claims every quarter.

Customer return and removal claims

Customer returns, in brief

Amazon’s customer return claims page applies only where Amazon already refunded or replaced the item. Sellable returns go back into inventory. Unsellable ones are reimbursed if Amazon was responsible, and customer damage depends on whether Amazon charges the customer a damage fee. If the item is not returned within 60 days, Amazon will in most cases charge the customer and reimburse you. Claims are filed between 60 and 120 days after the refund or replacement, with the order ID. Amazon does not reimburse refunds you issue directly. The full method is in our guide on return reimbursements that never arrive.

Removal orders

The removals claims page covers items lost or damaged by Amazon or its carrier after they left an Amazon facility on the way to your return address. It does not cover items returned to you because you violated a program policy or other terms.

For lost units, file no sooner than 15 days after the last confirmed movement of the removal shipment and no later than 75 days after the shipment was created. For damaged units and grading disputes, file as soon as you receive the items and within 60 days of delivery. Amazon publishes an evidence list for each situation. Each starts with the removal order ID, FNSKU, shipment ID and quantity, then adds images of the unit and its damage, tracking labels or packing slips, and box damage, plus the LPN number (the barcoded sticker on the packaging). For a short shipment, add the full shipping label, a proof of delivery noting the shortage and the marked packing list.

Photograph every removal delivery before you open it. Once cartons are broken down, the labels that prove the claim are gone.

Proof of cost and proof of ownership

Proof of ownership shows you owned the units. Proof of cost shows what they cost you, which matters because pre-order losses are paid at sourcing cost. One complete supplier invoice often does both.

What Amazon asks a document to show

For shipment claims, the ownership document must include the date of purchase, product names matching the lost or damaged items, and quantity. For sourcing cost, Amazon may ask for documents to validate your figure and lists its accepted proof of value on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page.

What good records look like generally

The IRS guidance on what kind of records to keep says supporting documents for purchases should identify the payee, the amount paid, proof of payment and the date incurred, with a description of the item showing the amount was for purchases. A combination of documents may be needed to support every element. An invoice naming the supplier, product, quantity, unit price and date, paired with proof of payment, answers most cost questions. Our guide to Amazon invoice requirements covers invoices in more depth.

When you cannot get a genuine document

Sometimes a supplier has closed or the invoice never named the product. Never create, edit or “tidy up” a document. Amazon lists forged, tampered or illegible documentation as a reason to decline a cost submission, and an altered document turns a lost-inventory question into an account integrity problem. Our article on forged or manipulated documentation suspensions explains how that plays out. The honest options are a reissued copy of the original invoice from the supplier’s records, bank or card statements alongside your genuine records, or Amazon’s own cost estimate.

Keeping claims accurate so they never look like abuse

Amazon declines claims and cost submissions it cannot verify, and its policy names the filing patterns it treats as a problem. Sellers who get into trouble usually file in bulk, early, twice, or through a tool nobody checks. Four gates keep a claim clean.

Gate one. The unit is genuinely unaccounted for

A missing unit may have been sold, returned to sellable, removed, reallocated or reconciled. Amazon also says mislabeled or unexpected units can be assigned back to you under an Amazon.Found merchant SKU and may sit in stranded inventory. Rule these out before calling a unit lost.

Gate two. Amazon has not already paid

The shipment and removal claim pages both tell you to check the Reimbursements report first. A reimbursement may be in inventory rather than cash, and same-day reimbursements may be combined, so count units, not lines.

Gate three. The window is open, both ends

Late claims are ineligible and early claims are premature. Customer return claims before day 60 and lost removal claims within 15 days of the last movement are both too soon under Amazon’s own rules.

Gate four. The numbers are honest

Claim the quantity the records support and the cost the invoice supports. A sourcing cost that is an outlier against similar products or Amazon’s estimate may be declined, and resubmitting the same cost within 30 days without new information will not change the decision. Inflating either number is a misstatement.

Third-party tools and services

Whoever files, the claims go in under your account, and the warning about many requests in a short time applies to you. Ask any provider to show the reconciliation behind each claim, and keep the right to approve the batch.

For a closely related case, read Amazon FBM Lost, Stolen and Not Received Packages.

When a claim is denied or reimbursement becomes an account issue

A denied claim

A denial usually means the reviewer saw an explanation your reconciliation did not rule out, such as a missed transaction, a mismatched document or a passed window. Answer it with a cleaner reconciliation, not an argument. Re-read the resolution reason, re-trace the unit in the ledger, close the gap or accept that the unit is accounted for, and only then dispute through the route Amazon gives you. Use the Resolved tab for fulfillment center and customer return defects, Get help for a reimbursement amount you disagree with, or Contact Us within 60 days for a customer return valuation.

A warning or account action

If Amazon contacts you about your claim activity, or limits reimbursement support, treat it as an account health matter, not a billing one, and work through it like any account issue.

• Diagnose. Pull every claim in the period and mark each as genuine, duplicate, premature, late, or unsupported in quantity or cost.
• Root cause. Name the specific failure, such as a tool filing without checking the Reimbursements report. “We made a mistake” is not a root cause.
• Corrective actions already taken. Withdraw or correct unsupported claims, reconcile the rest to records, and date what you changed.
• Preventive controls. A rule that no claim is filed without the four gates, a named approver, a reconciliation log and a set review cadence.

State only what you have done and can prove. This is educational information, not legal advice. If a reimbursement dispute involves large sums or account action, consider professional help before you respond.

A repeatable monthly reimbursement routine

Sellers who recover what they are owed without warnings do the same small tasks on a schedule.

Common mistakes

The costly mistakes are counting every window from the day you noticed, filing customer return claims before day 60, filing a second claim for one inbound shipment, missing units reimbursed in inventory, entering landed cost as sourcing cost, and throwing away removal cartons before checking them.

If reconciliation has become a backlog you cannot clear yourself, our Amazon inventory reconciliation service rebuilds the ledger trace, separates genuine claims from explained units, and prepares documented claims inside their windows. For how FBA works more broadly, see our guide to facts every FBA seller should know.

Frequently Asked Questions

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

It depends on the route. Inbound shipments run to nine months after verified delivery, fulfillment center losses to 60 days after the reported date, customer returns from 60 to 120 days after the refund, and lost removals up to 75 days.

Does Amazon reimburse the selling price of lost FBA inventory?

Not for losses before a customer order. Amazon reimburses sourcing cost for shipment, fulfillment center and removal losses, and refund minus fees for customer returns.

What counts as sourcing cost?

Amazon defines it as your cost to source the product from a manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller, or to produce it if you are the manufacturer. It excludes shipping, handling and duties.

Is there a maximum reimbursement per unit?

Yes. Amazon’s policy sets a maximum of $5,000 for a single unit of any FBA-eligible item.

How do I know if Amazon already reimbursed me?

Check the Reimbursements report, which lists requested and automatic reimbursements, in cash or inventory.

Can I file more than one claim for the same inbound shipment?

No. Amazon says you may file only one claim per shipment, so reconcile every line first.

Can filing too many claims hurt my account?

Amazon’s policy says insufficiently researched or premature requests, or many requests in a short time, can lead to delayed support, monitoring, investigation and account action.

Get Help With FBA Reimbursement Claims

If your claims keep getting denied, a backlog is aging toward its windows, or Amazon has flagged your claim activity, we can review the reconciliation and the documents with you. You can submit your case for review or book a consultation to go through your situation.

This article is educational information, not legal or accounting advice. Amazon changes its policies, windows and tools, so confirm the current version in Seller Central before filing. Got Suspended? does not guarantee any reimbursement outcome, amount or timeline.

Our Amazon inventory reconciliation team can take the case from here. If the account itself is restricted, start with our Amazon suspension service. You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.

Sources

• Amazon Seller Central: FBA inventory reimbursement policy
• Amazon Seller Central: Shipment to Amazon claims
• Amazon Seller Central: Fulfillment center operations claim
• Amazon Seller Central: Customer return claims
• Amazon Seller Central: Removals claims
• Amazon Seller Central: Reconcile your shipment
• Amazon Seller Central: Reimbursements report (overview)
• IRS: What kind of records should I keep