Quick answer. First find out which kind of “inactive” you have. If you set your listings to Inactive in Vacation Settings, switching them back to Active brings self-fulfilled listings back within about an hour. If Amazon deactivated the account, sign in, open Account Health and use Reactivate your account or Submit new information, then upload what Performance Notifications asks for. Amazon says a seller performance review can take up to two business days after it receives your documents. High-volume sellers may also have to certify their information under the INFORM Consumers Act, and Amazon says reinstatement follows 48 to 72 hours after both verification and certification are done. Bring genuine, current documents that match your account exactly, update anything that changed, and restart sales gradually with stock you can document.
An account that has sat quiet for months is not a blank slate. While you were away, your address may have changed, your bank may have been replaced, your business license may have lapsed, your credit card may have expired, and Amazon’s rules kept moving. When you come back, every one of those gaps can surface at once, usually as a banner saying the account is deactivated and Amazon needs information.
Most sellers in this position have done nothing wrong. They stepped away for a season, a family matter, a supply problem or a new job. The catch is that reactivation treats an old account like a new one in one respect. Amazon wants proof that the person and business behind it are who the account says they are, today.
What “inactive” can mean on an Amazon seller account
Sellers use the word inactive for at least four different situations, and Amazon treats each one differently. Before you upload anything, name yours from Amazon’s own words in the banner, the email or Account Health. Amazon does not publish a fixed number of days without sales after which an account is switched off, so the notice you received is the authority, not a figure you read somewhere.
A fifth situation looks similar but is not dormancy at all. That is an account deactivated for a policy or performance violation that happened before you stepped away. If Account Health names a policy, an Account Health Rating problem or a specific violation, you need an appeal, not a reactivation, and different evidence. Our guide on how long an Amazon appeal takes covers that path.
What Amazon says happens to an account you stop using
Amazon’s public pages describe several things that continue, or can happen, while an account is idle. None is a penalty for resting, but together they explain why a quiet account often needs work before it can sell again.
Your agreement with Amazon keeps running
The Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement runs from the day you complete registration until either side ends it. You can terminate at any time on notice. Amazon may terminate for convenience with 30 days’ advance notice, and may suspend or terminate immediately in listed situations, such as an uncured material breach, suspected deceptive or fraudulent activity, harm to other sellers or customers, an Account Health Rating below the published threshold, or a legal requirement.
The same agreement requires you to keep the information you gave Amazon accurate, complete and valid at all times, to use only a name you are authorized to use, and to update Seller Account information promptly when it changes. You also authorize Amazon to verify your information, including updated information. That is the heart of reactivation. An account that went quiet while the business behind it changed is now out of step with what you agreed to keep current.
Fees can continue while listings are off
Amazon’s page on listing status for vacations and other absences says applicable monthly subscription fees keep being charged while listings are set to Inactive. To avoid the Professional plan fee, Amazon points to downgrading to the Individual selling plan. A seller who stopped selling, left a Professional plan running and let the card on file expire can come back to a billing problem as well as a verification one. The seller performance review page lists an out of date or invalid credit card as a trigger for review.
Unclaimed proceeds can be sent to a state
Section P-5 of the agreement, titled Dormant Accounts, is the one place Amazon uses the word dormant for seller accounts. It covers money, not selling privileges. If Amazon holds sales proceeds and there has been no activity, as Amazon determines it, for the period set by applicable unclaimed property laws, Amazon says it will notify you and give you the option to keep the account open and the proceeds there. If you do not respond within the time Amazon specifies, it sends the proceeds to your state of residency based on your account information, or possibly to Delaware if it cannot determine your state or the account is associated with a foreign country.
If you think this already happened, the federal USAGov unclaimed money page says state governments hold most unclaimed money and points you to your state’s unclaimed property office, and to those of any other states where you have lived. That claim process is run by the state, not Amazon.
Your Account Health history keeps its own clock
Amazon’s Account Health Rating policy says the rating runs from 0 to 1,000, reflects policy adherence and selling activities over the last 180 days, and starts at 200 for all new sellers. Green (200 to 1,000) means not at risk based on the policies in the score, yellow (100 to 199) means at risk, and red (99 or lower) means eligible for deactivation or already deactivated. Regardless of the rating, Amazon may deactivate immediately if it suspects fraudulent, deceptive, illegal or otherwise harmful activity. Check your rating and any open items before you restart, because an old unresolved violation does not go away because you stopped selling.
First, diagnose which situation you are in
Reactivation goes wrong most often when a seller answers the wrong question, such as uploading identity documents to fix a policy issue, or writing a long appeal when Amazon only wanted a utility bill. We start with diagnosis. Read every notice in full, list each item Amazon asked for, and match each item to a source document before you touch any setting.
Where to verify each fact before you act
Do not work from memory. The account may hold an old address you forgot, a bank account you closed or a phone number that no longer reaches you. Pull every value from the source.
| Question | Where to check | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Why is the account inactive? | Seller Central alert, Account Health, Performance Notifications | The exact reason Amazon names and the documents it lists |
| Are listings switched off by you? | Settings, Account settings, Vacation Settings | Active or Inactive for each marketplace |
| Is there an open policy item? | Account Health, Product Policy Compliance tab, Account Health Rating | Any violation, rating color and open action |
| Is the card on file valid? | View Credit Card info, Charge Methods page | Expiry date and the name on the card |
| Is your business still active and in good standing? | Your state’s business registry, reachable through nass.org | Status active, exact legal name, registered address |
| Does the IRS have your current responsible party and address? | Your EIN records and IRS Form 8822-B | Whether a change still needs to be reported |
| Were proceeds sent to a state? | Your state unclaimed property office via USAGov | Any property listed under the business name |
The reverification steps, in the order Amazon describes them
Amazon’s seller performance review page and its appeal page describe the route. Once the diagnosis is done, the steps are mechanical. The real work is in what you upload.
The INFORM layer for high-volume sellers
Amazon’s page about the INFORM Consumers Act says the law took effect on June 27, 2023. It covers third-party sellers who, in any continuous 12-month period during the previous 24 months, sold 200 or more new or unused consumer products and had $5,000 or more in gross revenues. Watch the look-back. A seller who was busy within the last two years can still be covered after a quiet spell. The Federal Trade Commission’s business guidance on the INFORM Consumers Act describes the same threshold and says marketplaces must require covered sellers to electronically certify their information at least once a year.
Amazon says it must collect and verify your name, a government-issued identification document, a business address, bank account information, a working email address, a working phone number and a tax identification number. This information must be in the seller’s business name or that of an individual legally authorized to act for the seller, and Amazon must verify it again any time it changes. If you miss the timelines it gives, or it cannot verify you, Amazon says it may withhold payments or deactivate the account until you provide what it needs.
Documents to have ready before you click Reactivate
Gather everything before you start the submission, not during it. Amazon’s global seller identity, address, and business verification page and its seller performance review page set out what is accepted. The exact list for your account is whatever Performance Notifications names, so use the table below to prepare, not as a substitute for that list.
| Document | What Amazon says it must show | Where it usually fails |
|---|---|---|
| Government photo ID of the primary contact | First and last name matching the primary contact on the account, date of birth, unique ID number, expiry if any, color copy, both sides where the back carries important information | Name differs from the account, ID expired while the account was quiet |
| Business verification document | Issued by a government-authorized agency within the past 180 days, business name, registration number, issue date, not expired | Old formation papers instead of a recent certificate of good standing or registry extract |
| Proof of address | From a reliable independent provider, not handwritten, provider name or logo, customer name (business name for professional sellers), full address, issue date | Address on the document is the new one but Seller Central still shows the old one |
| Utility bill (seller performance review) | Holder’s name and address, provider name, address and logo where applicable, issue or due date, issued within the past 90 days, unaltered, not password-protected | Bill is older than 90 days or in a former landlord’s name |
| Valid credit card | Updated on the Charge Methods page, plus a supporting document | Card expired during the dormant period |
File rules that cause silent rejections
Amazon’s verification page says documents must be valid (not expired, revoked, inactive or closed), high resolution and in focus, complete and not cropped or angled, a scan or a photo of the original, less than 50MB, in TIF, TIFF, PNG, JPG, PDF or JPEG format with no special characters such as $, & or # in the file name, authentic and unaltered, and not password-protected. The seller performance review page adds that screenshots are not acceptable for most business locations. Documents in a language Amazon does not list need a notarized translation alongside the original.
For business sellers, Amazon also asks for beneficial owners, meaning any natural person who directly or indirectly owns more than 25 percent of the shares or voting rights of the business. If ownership changed while the account was dormant, Amazon will need to see that change.
Updating business and bank information honestly
The hardest part of reviving an old account is usually not the upload. It is that the business changed while the account stood still. The fix is reconciliation. List every identity and business data point on the account, list the same data point on each genuine document, and resolve each difference before you submit.
Reconcile every data point, then change Seller Central to match the truth
Work through legal name, business name and registration number, registered address, primary contact, beneficial owners, phone, email, bank account holder and tax identity. Amazon’s seller performance review FAQ gives two ways to handle a mismatch. Update the name or address in Seller Central to match your documents, or provide documents that justify the difference. If you moved, change the address in Seller Central and supply proof of the new one. If you rent a coworking space and have no utility bill in your name, Amazon accepts the coworking company’s utility bill together with your lease or rental agreement.
Keep the order right. Fix the source records first (state registry, IRS, bank), gather documents from those sources, update Seller Central, then submit. Changing Seller Central before you hold documents that support the change creates the exact mismatch you are trying to avoid.
Bring the outside records up to date first
If your entity fell out of good standing while you were away, you cannot get a certificate of good standing until the state restores it. The National Association of Secretaries of State links to each state’s business registration pages and corporate name databases, where you confirm status and order current documents. If your responsible party, mailing address or business location changed, the IRS Form 8822-B page says the form reports those changes, and changes in responsible parties must be reported within 60 days.
Bank changes deserve their own care
Amazon lists a change of bank account details as one that may send an account into seller performance review. Its INFORM page says bank account information must be in the seller’s business name or that of an individual legally authorized to act for it. Use a genuine account that belongs to the business, held in a name that matches the legal name on your other documents. A relative’s account or a borrowed business account creates a mismatch no explanation will cure.
When a genuine document cannot be obtained
Sometimes the honest answer is that a document does not exist yet. The entity was dissolved, the utility is in a former partner’s name, or the ID expired and renewal is pending. Do not submit something edited to fit. Amazon requires documents to be authentic and unaltered, and verification is built to catch alterations. Get the genuine document first, even if it means waiting, or change the account information to match the documents you hold. If the business that owned the account no longer exists in any form, reactivation may not be the right path at all, and you want to know that before you spend weeks on it.
Reactivation rejected more than once?
Send us the notices and we will tell you plainly what is holding the account and what to fix first.
Restarting sales without walking into a review
Getting the account back is half the job. An out of practice operation is most likely to slip in the first weeks of selling again, and Amazon measures from the first order.
Know the performance targets before the first order
Amazon’s Order Performance policy requires an Order Defect Rate under 1 percent over 60 days (negative feedback, A-to-z Guarantee claims and chargebacks), a Cancellation Rate under 2.5 percent over 7 days for seller-fulfilled orders, a Late Shipment Rate under 4 percent, and a Valid Tracking Rate above 95 percent over 30 days. Starting June 29, 2026, sellers must also set accurate handling times for seller-fulfilled SKUs. Small order counts make these rates jumpy. In a hypothetical first month with 40 orders, one A-to-z claim is already 2.5 percent. Our guide on how Order Defect Rate is graded goes deeper.
Restart with products you can document
Start with products you sold before, from suppliers who still exist and whose invoices you can produce. A long-quiet account that reappears selling an unfamiliar category at volume looks different from its own history, and if Amazon asks for supply chain documents you want them on hand. Our guide to Amazon invoice requirements covers what holds up.
Turn listings back on in a controlled way
If you used Vacation Settings, Amazon says self-fulfilled listings return within about an hour of setting Active, and pending orders are not cancelled automatically. Before you switch, check stock counts, handling times, prices and shipping templates, because old settings go live exactly as you left them. You can create and edit listings while inactive, so clean up first. Review any old listing that may fall under a restricted category or a policy that changed while you were away. Our note on using vacation mode covers planned breaks.
Related guides. Can You Have Multiple Amazon Seller Accounts Without Approval? Amazon’s Current Rule Explained and Amazon Seller Account Under Review.
For a closely related case, read Supplier Closed or Won’t Send Invoices? How to Prove Authenticity to Amazon Without Your Original Supplier.
When reactivation is rejected or stuck
A rejection usually names its reason in Performance Notifications. Handle it like any enforcement action. Diagnose, find the root cause, correct and prevent.
- Diagnosis. Read the rejection line by line and find whether a document was expired, cropped, mismatched or the wrong type.
- Root cause. Name the specific gap, such as an address updated at the bank but not in Seller Central.
- Corrective action already taken. Fix the record, obtain the genuine document, and keep proof of when you did it.
- Preventive control. Assign one person to update Seller Central within a set number of days of any change to address, bank, ownership or contact details, with a calendar date to recheck.
Then submit once through View Appeal. If the deactivation turns out to be tied to a policy or performance issue, our Amazon suspension service handles those appeals.
Mistakes that keep a dormant account switched off
- Uploading the same rejected set again and again. Amazon warns against repeated and inaccurate submissions.
- Opening a second account to sidestep the problem instead of fixing the first.
- Using a document in someone else’s name with no explanation or supporting record.
- Editing a PDF to show a new address. Get the genuine record instead.
- Restarting at full volume with no invoices and old handling times.
- Ignoring an email about held proceeds because the account seemed unimportant.
A routine that keeps a quiet account ready
If you plan to step away again, sign in at least monthly, read Account Health and Performance Notifications, keep the card, phone and email current, and update Seller Central whenever the address, bank, ownership or business status changes. Keep the Emergency Notifications phone on the Notification preferences page current, since Amazon says it may call when account health degrades. Decide deliberately whether to keep the Professional plan or downgrade. The account then stays in step with the business even when nothing sells.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take to reactivate an inactive Amazon seller account?
Amazon says a seller performance review can take up to two business days after it receives your documents. For INFORM deactivations, Amazon says reinstatement follows 48 to 72 hours after verification and certification are both complete.
Does Amazon close seller accounts that have no sales?
Amazon does not publish a fixed inactivity period for closing accounts. The Business Solutions Agreement lets Amazon terminate for convenience with 30 days’ notice, and its Dormant Accounts section deals with held proceeds.
What happens to money left in a dormant account?
Amazon says it will notify you and offer to keep the account open. If you do not respond in time, it sends the proceeds to your state of residency, or possibly Delaware.
Do I have to verify my identity again after a long break?
Often, yes, especially if your address, bank, card or phone changed. Amazon lists those changes as examples that may lead to a seller performance review.
Can I reactivate using my old business documents?
Business documents must be issued within the past 180 days and not expired, and utility bills for a seller performance review within the past 90 days.
Do I keep paying fees while my listings are inactive?
Yes. Amazon says applicable monthly subscription fees continue while listings are inactive, and suggests downgrading to the Individual plan to avoid them.
Should I open a new account instead?
No. Fix the existing account with genuine, current information. A second account raises its own policy questions and does not resolve the first.
Do my FBA listings go inactive with vacation settings?
No. Amazon says FBA listings remain active when you set self-fulfilled listings to Inactive.
Get Help With Reactivating Your Amazon Seller Account
If your reactivation keeps getting rejected, or the deactivation turns out to be about more than paperwork, you can submit your case for review or book a consultation to settle the right path before you submit again.
This article is educational information, not legal advice. Amazon’s policies, help pages and timelines change, so confirm current requirements in Seller Central before you act. No outcome or timeline is guaranteed.
You can also see all our marketplace suspension services.
Sources
- Amazon Services Business Solutions Agreement
- Seller performance review
- Global seller identity, address, and business verification
- Appeal an account deactivation or listing removal
- About the INFORM Consumers Act
- Listing status for vacations, holidays, and other absences
- Account Health Rating program policy
- Order Performance program policy
- FTC: Informing Businesses about the INFORM Consumers Act
- IRS: About Form 8822-B
- USAGov: Find unclaimed money
- NASS: Business services, corporate registration
