Amazon FBA Reimbursement Guide: How to Claim What Amazon Owes You

Amazon fulfillment centers lose, damage, and miscount seller inventory every day. Most of the time, Amazon issues automatic reimbursements. But automatic systems miss a significant portion of eligible claims. Sellers who proactively audit their inventory and file claims recover thousands of dollars per year that would otherwise go uncollected.

The 2025 reimbursement policy change

In March 2025, Amazon changed how it calculates reimbursement values. Previously, reimbursements were based on the retail price of the item or the proceeds Amazon would have generated from selling it. The new policy reimburses based on estimated cost of goods, which Amazon calculates from historical shipment data and COGS reports.

For most sellers, this reduced reimbursement amounts by 50% to 70% compared to the old calculation. A product that sold for $30 with a $10 COGS now generates a $10 reimbursement where it previously generated $22 to $25. The policy change makes proactive tracking even more important because each unclaimed unit is worth less.

Types of reimbursable situations

Lost in warehouse: Amazon cannot locate your inventory but it has not been sold or returned. Amazon typically auto-reimburses after 30 days, but some cases slip through. Damaged in warehouse: Amazon or a carrier damages your product before it ships. Damaged returns: a customer return comes back damaged and Amazon marks it unsellable without reimbursing you. Customer refunds where the item was never returned: Amazon issues a refund to a customer but the product never comes back to inventory. Inbound shipment discrepancies: you send 100 units, Amazon receives 94, and the 6-unit discrepancy is not resolved.

How to find unreimbursed claims

Pull the Inventory Adjustments report from Seller Central (Reports > Fulfillment > Inventory Adjustments). Filter for adjustment codes that indicate loss or damage: E-Commerce Application Adjustment (ECOMM), Damaged: sellable inventory (DAMAGED), Found inventory (FOUND), Lost: inbound shipment (MISPLACED). Cross-reference these against your Reimbursements report to identify adjustments that were not followed by a reimbursement.

Also check the Reconcile section under Manage FBA Shipments. Any shipment marked with discrepancies between shipped and received quantity is a candidate for a reimbursement claim if it has not already been resolved.

Filing a claim

Claims are filed through Seller Support. The faster path: use the Contact Us form, select FBA Issue, then Lost/Damaged Inventory. Provide the ASIN, the FNSKU, the date range of the discrepancy, and the adjustment code from the report. Attach the inventory adjustment report showing the discrepancy.

Amazon has a 60-day window to investigate and resolve claims. You cannot file a claim for incidents more than 18 months old. Work backward from your reimbursement report: anything older than 6 months that did not generate a reimbursement is worth investigating before it exceeds the 18-month limit.

Reimbursement claim timeline

Amazon typically responds to claims within 7 to 14 days. If the investigation confirms the discrepancy, reimbursement is credited to your account balance, not paid out immediately. Complicated claims (high-value items, large quantity discrepancies, inbound shipment disputes) can take 30 to 45 days.

If a claim is denied and you believe it is incorrect, escalate through Seller Support. Attach documentation: your original shipment records, photos of the packed shipment if available, and the carrier's proof of delivery showing the units you sent.

Third-party reimbursement services

Several tools and agencies specialize in FBA reimbursement recovery: Helium10 Alerts, GETIDA, Refundly, and Seller Investigators among others. Most charge 25% to 30% of recovered amounts with no upfront cost. For sellers with high FBA volume, these services often recover more than a seller would doing manual audits because they run systematic checks across all claim categories.

The main risk: third-party services file claims on your behalf and some use aggressive tactics that violate Amazon's terms. Vet any service before giving it access to your account.

How much to expect

Sellers with $500,000 or more in annual FBA revenue typically recover $3,000 to $15,000 per year in reimbursements when they audit systematically. Sellers below $100,000 in revenue recover less in absolute terms but the same percentage. The investment is minimal relative to recovery.

Claim windows are shorter than they used to be

Amazon tightened the filing windows in 2024 and 2025, and the old 18-month rule no longer covers every claim type. Lost inventory claims sit in a much narrower window measured from the date Amazon logged the adjustment. Inbound shipment discrepancies have their own clock that starts when the shipment is marked received or closed. Customer return claims run from the refund date rather than the date you noticed.

The practical consequence: an annual audit is now too slow. Run the reconciliation monthly and you stay inside every window. Run it once a year and a portion of what you find will already be time-barred, which is a pure write-off.

The fee overcharges nobody claims

Inventory claims get the attention, but fee errors are often the larger number and they are easier to prove.

• Dimension and weight errors. Amazon measures your unit on intake and charges the fulfilment fee from its own measurement. If the cubiscan reads a padded mailer as a larger size tier, every unit you sell pays the wrong fee until someone notices. Check the Fee Preview report against your actual packed dimensions.
• Referral fee category errors. A product filed under the wrong category can pay 15% where it should pay 8%. This survives for years because nothing in Seller Central flags it.
• Removal order losses. Units you asked Amazon to return that never arrived, or arrived damaged, are reimbursable, and removal orders are outside most sellers' reconciliation routines entirely.
• Reimbursements paid in units rather than cash. Amazon sometimes replaces lost inventory with found inventory instead of paying. That closes the claim, so check that the units actually came back into sellable stock.

A monthly audit routine that takes an hour

1. Pull the Inventory Adjustments report for the previous month and filter to the loss and damage codes.
2. Pull the Reimbursements report for the same period plus the following 45 days, because reimbursements lag the adjustment.
3. Match on FNSKU and date. Anything in the first report without a matching entry in the second is a candidate.
4. Pull the Reconcile view under Manage FBA Shipments and list every shipment with a received quantity below the shipped quantity.
5. Pull the Returns report and flag refunds over 45 days old where no unit came back into inventory.
6. File the candidates in one sitting, one case per issue type rather than one case listing everything.

Keeping the cases separate matters. A case covering fourteen unrelated discrepancies tends to get one generic answer that closes all fourteen.

What wins a denied claim

Denials are routine and a large share of them reverse on the second pass, provided you add evidence rather than repeating the request. What moves a case: the carrier's proof of delivery showing the piece count, your supplier's packing list for the shipment, box content information exactly as submitted, and photographs of the packed pallet if you have them. What does not move a case: restating the ASIN and the amount in a longer message.

Write the reply as a short factual sequence. What you shipped, what the report says arrived, what the difference is worth at the reimbursement rate, and which documents are attached. Ask for the case to be escalated to the FBA reimbursement team by name if the first responder is clearly working from a script.

Keep your COGS current

Since the 2025 policy change reimburses on estimated cost of goods, Amazon's estimate becomes your payout when you have not supplied a real figure. Amazon infers a cost from historical data, and the inference is frequently low. Upload your actual cost of goods in Seller Central under the manage inventory fields, keep it current when supplier pricing changes, and keep the supplier invoices that support it. This is the single highest-value hour in the whole process, because it raises the value of every future claim rather than recovering one past one.

Frequently Asked Questions

How far back can I claim FBA reimbursements?

It depends on the claim type, and the windows have been shortened. Inventory adjustment claims run from the date of the adjustment, inbound discrepancies from the date the shipment closed, and customer return claims from the refund date. Because the clocks differ and all of them are shorter than the old blanket 18-month rule, the safe approach is a monthly reconciliation rather than trying to work out which deadline applies to which line.

Does Amazon reimburse automatically?

For many lost and damaged cases, yes, and those automatic reimbursements appear in your Reimbursements report without you doing anything. The gap is in the cases the automation does not catch: inbound discrepancies, returns that never physically came back, removal orders, and fee overcharges. Those need a filed claim.

How much are FBA reimbursements worth after the 2025 policy change?

Reimbursements are now calculated on estimated cost of goods rather than retail value, which cut payouts substantially for most sellers. A unit that used to reimburse near its selling price now reimburses near what you paid for it. This makes your recorded cost of goods the most important input in the whole system, because Amazon uses its own estimate when yours is missing.

Should I use a reimbursement service or do it myself?

Services typically charge a percentage of what they recover and no upfront fee, which makes them attractive for high-volume accounts where manual reconciliation would take days each month. Below roughly a few hundred FBA orders a month, the monthly routine above recovers most of what is available in about an hour. Whichever route you take, check what account access the service requires and confirm it files within Amazon's rules, because the claims are made in your name and the account risk stays with you.

What is the difference between a reimbursement and a refund?

A refund is money Amazon returns to a customer. A reimbursement is money Amazon credits to you for inventory or fees it got wrong. They interact: when Amazon refunds a customer and the unit never comes back to your inventory, you are owed a reimbursement for that unit, and that specific case is one of the most commonly missed.