How long does the Amazon FBA reimbursement process typically take from start to finish?

The end-to-end timeline varies dramatically by claim type and documentation quality. Simple claims (e.g., standard items lost in transit with clear carrier tracking) can be fully resolved and funded within 5 to 10 business days. Highly complex claims (e.g., massive LTL freight shortages, high-value damaged inventory requiring photographic evidence, or customer switch fraud) may bounce back and forth between specialized support teams, taking anywhere from 30 to 60 days. Amazon's official internal policy dictates they aim to review initial claim submissions within 45 days, but significant delays occur if they demand additional documentation like revised invoices or secondary proof of delivery.

What exact documents do I need to submit to guarantee an FBA reimbursement claim approval?

To ensure first-pass approval and avoid timeline delays, your documentation toolkit must be pristine. The essential documents include: 1) A finalized Commercial Invoice from your supplier (dated before the shipment, showing matching buyer/seller addresses and correct ASIN quantities). Pro-forma invoices are strictly rejected. 2) Ironclad Proof of Delivery (POD). For small parcels, this means official carrier delivery logs (UPS/FedEx). For LTL freight, this requires a stamped Bill of Lading (BOL) physically signed by an Amazon warehouse employee upon trailer arrival. 3) Inventory reconciliation reports exported directly from your Seller Central ledger showing the exact transaction defect codes. For physical damage claims, providing high-resolution photographs of the damaged packaging and product is practically mandatory.

Are there specific legal deadlines for filing an FBA reimbursement claim before it expires?

Yes, Amazon strictly enforces non-negotiable chronological deadlines, and any claim filed after these windows is automatically denied without the possibility of appeal. For warehouse lost or damaged inventory (adjustments occurring inside the fulfillment center), you have exactly 18 months from the date of the ledger defect. For customer return discrepancies (e.g., buyer was refunded but never returned the item), the window is 18 months from the refund date. For inbound shipment shortages, you have only 9 months from the date the shipment was created. For FBA weight and dimensional fee overcharges, the window is an incredibly short 90 days.

How does Amazon calculate the financial value of my reimbursement? Will I get my full retail price?

No, you will not receive your full retail asking price. Amazon calculates the reimbursement value based on the 'Estimated Payout' formula. They take the median sales price of your ASIN over the trailing 18 months, and subtract the FBA fulfillment fees and referral fees that you would have normally paid if the item had sold to a customer. Essentially, they reimburse you for the profit and cost of goods, minus their cut. If the item has no sales history, they apply a default category algorithmic value. If this default value is mathematically lower than your wholesale cost of goods sold, you can dispute it by providing your supplier invoices to prove the actual replacement cost.

What happens if Amazon outright rejects my FBA reimbursement claim? Can I appeal the decision?

If your claim is rejected, you absolutely can and should appeal, but you must act quickly. Claims are typically rejected due to insufficient documentation, expired timelines, or mismatched quantity data. When rejected, you are placed in a 'Need More Info' status. You generally have a short window (often 48 hours to 5 days, depending on the case) to respond before the case auto-closes. You must carefully read the specific reason for rejection, gather the corrected information (such as a better copy of an invoice or a highlighted BOL), and resubmit. If you face repeated generic rejections, you should formally request in the case log that the issue be escalated to a captive team investigator for manual review.

Amazon FBA Claim Timeline: How Long Does the Reimbursement Pro...

How long does a refund review take? Learn the official Amazon FBA claim timeline, essential documentation checklists, and how to increase your success rate.

Introduction: The Hidden Cash Flow Trap of FBA Claim Deadlines

For e-commerce brands utilizing the Amazon Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) network, managing cash flow is the ultimate lifeblood of sustainable scaling. When inventory is lost or damaged in a massive automated warehouse, or shorted during complex inbound shipping transfers, you are effectively providing Amazon with a zero-interest loan. You want to get reimbursed as quickly as possible to reinvest that capital into fresh inventory. However, the reimbursement lifecycle has incredibly strict guidelines, convoluted review phases, and silent expirations. Understanding the official Amazon FBA claim timeline is absolutely crucial for submitting your claims before they permanently expire.

Every year, third-party sellers lose millions of dollars in unrecovered inventory simply because they failed to file their claims within the appropriate time windows. Amazon will not automatically reimburse you for every error their systems make. While they do run routine sweeps that catch a portion of lost inventory, a significant percentage falls through the cracks and relies entirely on the seller to manually audit and file a claim. If you miss these strict chronological deadlines, Amazon will reject your reimbursement request automatically, and there is no appeals process for an expired claim.

This comprehensive 3,000+ word guide covers the key milestones of the FBA reimbursement process in exhausting detail. We will break down the precise filing windows for different dispute categories, analyze the documentation you must prepare, explore the exact mathematics of how Amazon calculates your payout, and provide a foolproof, step-by-step timeline management protocol to ensure you never lose a dime to warehouse discrepancies again.

1. The FBA Reimbursement Milestones: A Chronological Breakdown

The lifecycle of an Amazon FBA claim does not begin the moment you realize a unit is missing. It follows a highly formalized structural path that typically flows through three distinct chronological phases. Understanding each phase allows you to set realistic expectations and optimize your internal accounting cycles.

Before you can even open a case with Seller Support, Amazon enforces a mandatory waiting period. This window exists because Amazon's logistics network is incredibly dynamic. Products are constantly being shifted between fulfillment centers via transshipments to optimize prime delivery speeds. During these movements, inventory can be temporarily misplaced and then relocated by warehouse scanners a few days later.

For lost or damaged items at the warehouse, you must wait a minimum of 30 days after the item is reported missing in your Inventory Ledger. If you attempt to file a claim on day 29, the automated system will instantly reject it. For inbound shipment shortages, the wait period is tied to the shipment status. You cannot file a claim until the shipment reaches 'Closed' status, which can take anywhere from 45 to 90 days after the initial creation of the shipping plan.

Once you successfully submit a fully documented claim case inside Seller Central, the countdown clock for the investigation begins. The standard turnaround time for a frontline support agent to review your initial documentation is 5 to 10 business days. During this period, Amazon's auditing team is cross-referencing your submitted data against internal warehouse metrics.

They will scrutinize your supplier invoices for validity, verify the carrier delivery logs to confirm the physical drop-off, and check weight and dimension discrepancies. If your case is complex—such as a large LTL (Less Than Truckload) shipment involving multiple pallets and thousands of missing units—the investigation can be escalated to a specialized team, extending the review phase up to 30 days.

Once a claim is finalized and approved, the reimbursement amount is officially added to your seller account ledger as a positive balance. However, this does not mean the cash instantly hits your bank account. The funds are subject to your standard rolling payout cycle, which for most sellers occurs every 14 days.

Furthermore, if your account is subject to an 'Account Level Reserve' (a hold Amazon places to cover potential customer chargebacks or A-to-Z claims), a portion of your reimbursement may be held in reserve for an additional cycle. Realistically, from the date of claim approval to the moment the cash is deposited in your external banking institution, you should expect a timeline of 3 to 14 days.

2. Strict Filing Deadlines: The Time-Window Rules You Cannot Break

Amazon enforces uncompromising deadlines based on the specific dispute category. The timeline begins ticking from the exact date of the discrepancy event. If you file a claim even one day after these specific windows close, your request will be automatically and permanently denied. To effectively manage your FBA business, you must memorize these deadlines.

Below is a detailed breakdown of the time-window rules formatted for quick reference:

| Claim Category | Time Window to File | Start Date of Countdown | | --- | --- | --- | | **Inbound Shipment Shortages** | 9 Months | From the date the shipment is created | | **Warehouse Lost Stock** | 18 Months | From the date of the loss adjustment in the ledger | | **Warehouse Damaged Stock** | 18 Months | From the date of the damage adjustment in the ledger | | **Customer Return Discrepancies** | 18 Months | From the date the customer was refunded | | **Removal Order Shortages** | 18 Months | From the date the removal order was initiated | | **FBA Fee Overcharges** | 90 Days | From the date the incorrect fee was charged |

When you send inventory to an FBA fulfillment center, Amazon sometimes receives fewer units than what was indicated on your shipping plan. You have exactly 9 months from the shipment creation date to file a claim. However, because you are also required to wait until the shipment is 'Closed', your actual actionable window is much shorter—often leaving you with only 5 to 6 months to gather documents and submit the case.

While items are sitting in the warehouse, they can be damaged by forklifts, lost during transshipments, or destroyed by facility issues like leaks. Amazon gives you a generous 18-month window to file these claims. This extended timeline is beneficial because it allows you to perform quarterly or bi-annual audits rather than frantically checking your ledger every single week. The countdown starts on the exact day the negative adjustment appears in your Inventory Ledger report.

A heavily overlooked claim category is FBA fee overcharges. Sometimes Amazon's automated Cubiscan machines mismeasure your product's packaging, bumping it into a more expensive fulfillment tier. You only have 90 days from the date of the incorrect charge to request a remeasurement and claim a retroactive refund for the overcharged fees. Because this window is incredibly short, aggressive monitoring of your fulfillment fee reports is mandatory.

3. The Inventory Ledger: Your Single Source of Truth

To master the FBA claim timeline, you must first master the Amazon Inventory Ledger. This report is the absolute single source of truth for every movement your products make within the fulfillment network. Without analyzing this report, you cannot accurately identify discrepancies or determine when the 18-month countdown clock began.

The Inventory Ledger replaced the legacy 'Inventory Adjustments' and 'Daily Inventory History' reports, combining them into one unified, albeit complex, dataset. To access this data, navigate through Seller Central: **Reports > Fulfillment > Inventory > Inventory Ledger**.

When you download the ledger as a CSV file and open it in a spreadsheet processor, you will need to filter by specific 'Event Types' and 'Reason Codes'. These codes tell the story of your lost inventory:

Code E (Damaged at Amazon Fulfillment Center): This code appears when a warehouse worker accidentally damages your product. If a positive adjustment (reimbursement) does not appear within 30 days, you must file a claim.
Code M (Missing at Amazon Fulfillment Center): This indicates the system cannot locate your unit. It has vanished from its designated bin. Again, a 30-day wait applies before action can be taken.
Code P (Found at Amazon Fulfillment Center): If you see a Code M followed by a Code P a few days later, the item was found. No claim is necessary.
Code Q (Damaged by Inbound Carrier): If Amazon's partnered carrier damages the goods during transit before they even hit the warehouse, this code is logged.

By cross-referencing the negative adjustments (lost/damaged) with positive adjustments (found/reimbursed), you can identify the exact delta of uncompensated units. This mathematical difference forms the entire basis of your Seller Support claim. Utilizing precision tools like the Amazon FBA 30-Up Cropper can drastically reduce receiving errors from the start, ensuring barcodes are perfectly formatted for Amazon's scanners and minimizing the appearance of Code M discrepancies.

4. Preparing the Ultimate Claim Documentation Toolkit

A significant reason FBA claims drag on past the initial 5-to-10 day investigation phase is improper documentation. Auditing support reps are trained to look for extremely specific data points. If your submitted documents lack these data points, your claim will be rejected with a request for more information, restarting the timeline clock from zero.

To guarantee first-pass approval and accelerate your reimbursement, you must compile an airtight documentation toolkit before ever clicking 'Submit'.

Amazon does not accept pro-forma invoices, sales orders, or unfinalized purchase orders. You must submit a finalized commercial invoice from your supplier or manufacturer. The invoice must meet the following strict criteria:

The invoice date must be prior to the shipment creation date. Amazon will reject invoices dated after the inventory was supposedly shipped.
The document must clearly display the supplier's full name, address, phone number, and email. Amazon actively calls and emails suppliers to verify the authenticity of invoices.
The buyer's billing information on the invoice must identically match the legal entity name and address registered in your Seller Central account.
The item descriptions must clearly correlate with the ASINs in your claim. Include your MSKU or FNSKU on the invoice if possible to eliminate ambiguity.
The quantity purchased must be equal to or greater than the quantity you are claiming was lost.

For inbound shipment claims, proving that Amazon actually received the physical boxes is the most critical hurdle. The documentation required depends on the shipping method:

Small Parcel Delivery (SPD): You must provide the official tracking numbers from carriers like UPS or FedEx showing a status of 'Delivered'. Simply providing a screenshot of the tracking page is often insufficient; Amazon prefers official drop-off logs or stamped receipts.
Less Than Truckload (LTL): You must provide a stamped Bill of Lading (BOL). When the truck driver delivers the pallets to the fulfillment center, an Amazon warehouse employee must sign and physically stamp the BOL, noting the trailer number, seal number, and the exact count of pallets received. Without this stamp, Amazon will claim they never received the freight.

5. Deep Dive: Inbound Shipment Shortages & Reconciliation

Inbound shipment shortages represent the most frustrating category of FBA claims because you know the products left your warehouse, yet Amazon insists they never arrived. Resolving these requires navigating a very specific reconciliation workflow within Seller Central.

Once your shipment has been open for up to 90 days, its status will finally change from 'Receiving' to 'Closed'. At this point, the 'Reconcile' tab within the shipment's summary page unlocks. If there is a discrepancy between the shipped quantity and the received quantity, you will be prompted to select an action from a dropdown menu.

You will typically encounter two primary defect codes:

FBA15: The expected quantity was not received. This is the standard shortage code.
FBA16: More items were received than expected. While you aren't missing items, you must acknowledge the overage to prevent inbound defect strikes against your account.

To initiate the claim, you must select 'Research Missing Units' from the dropdown for every affected line item, upload your proof of delivery and commercial invoices directly into the tab, and submit the case. This instantly opens a log with Seller Support.

If you consistently suffer from inbound shortages, the issue may stem from your prep center or internal warehouse labeling practices. If Amazon's automated conveyor scanners cannot read your FNSKU labels because they are printed poorly, smudged, or improperly scaled, the units get sidelined to a problem-solve area where they are often miscounted.

To radically improve your inbound scan accuracy, it is highly recommended to standardize your label formatting. By utilizing specialized formatting software like the Amazon FBA 30-Up Cropper, you can ensure that every FNSKU barcode perfectly fits your thermal label stock, eliminating margin cutoffs and low-resolution artifacting. Perfect labels lead to immediate, accurate receiving, bypassing the need to file a 9-month inbound claim altogether.

6. Deep Dive: Handling Customer Returns & FBA Discrepancies

Customer returns are a massive black hole for FBA sellers. Amazon's policy is incredibly generous to buyers, often issuing refunds the moment a return tracking label is scanned by UPS, before the item ever makes it back to the warehouse. This creates a dangerous timeline that sellers must monitor carefully.

When Amazon refunds a customer for an FBA order, the customer has exactly 45 days to physically return the item to the fulfillment center. If the 45-day window passes and the item is not returned, Amazon is contractually obligated to automatically reimburse the seller for the value of the unreturned item.

However, this automated system frequently fails. To monitor this, you must cross-reference the 'FBA Customer Returns' report with your 'Payments' report. If a customer was refunded, 45 days have passed, and there is no corresponding return or reimbursement logged, you have identified a valid claim.

A more complex scenario occurs when the customer returns the item, but they commit 'switch fraud'—sending back a completely different product, a broken older model, or even a literal box of rocks. Amazon warehouse workers, processing thousands of returns an hour, often fail to catch this. They simply scan the return, mark it 'Customer Damaged' or 'Defective', and place it in your unsellable inventory.

To successfully file a claim for switch fraud, you must create a Removal Order to have the unsellable unit shipped back to your own facility. Once you receive the fraudulent return, you must document the unboxing process. Take clear, high-resolution photographs of the shipping box, the fraudulent item, and most importantly, the LPN (License Plate Network) sticker that Amazon attaches to all customer returns. You must open a Seller Support case containing these photos and the removal order ID within 18 months to demand a reimbursement for the fraudulent return.

7. FBA Claim Value Calculation: The Math Behind the Reimbursement

A common misconception among new sellers is that Amazon reimburses you for your retail asking price or your manufacturing cost. In reality, Amazon calculates reimbursements based on the 'Estimated Payout'—the exact amount of cash you would have received if the lost or damaged item had successfully sold to a customer on the marketplace.

The standard formula Amazon uses is:

Estimated Payout = (Median Sales Price) - (FBA Fulfillment Fees) - (Amazon Referral Fees)

To determine the Median Sales Price, Amazon looks at your historical sales data for that specific ASIN over the trailing 18 months. If you have been heavily discounting the product recently, this can negatively drag down your reimbursement value. If you have no sales history (e.g., a brand new product launch that was lost inbound), Amazon will use an internal algorithm to determine a default category value based on similar products across the marketplace.

Sometimes, Amazon's algorithmic calculation heavily undervalues your inventory, offering you pennies on the dollar. If you receive a reimbursement that is mathematically lower than your cost of goods sold, you have the right to dispute the valuation.

To do this, you must open a new case referencing the original reimbursement ID. You will need to provide concrete evidence of the product's true market value. Submit your manufacturer's commercial invoices proving your raw cost of goods, as well as links to your Shopify store or direct competitor listings to justify the higher retail valuation. Support agents can manually override the system's default payout if the evidence is overwhelming.

8. Actionable Timeline Management Protocol: A Monthly SOP

Relying on memory to file claims within 9 to 18-month windows is a recipe for lost revenue. Successful Amazon FBA operators build rigorous Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) into their monthly accounting cycles. Implement the following 4-week structured timeline management protocol to ensure zero revenue leakage.

Week 1: The Inbound Audit. Review the 'Manage FBA Shipments' dashboard. Filter for all shipments created more than 60 days ago. If any are stuck in 'Receiving' or 'Closed' with discrepancies, gather your BOLs and commercial invoices. Prepare the documentation toolkit for immediate filing.
Week 2: The Warehouse Discrepancy Sweep. Download the Inventory Ledger report for the trailing 30 to 60 days. Filter for Code M and Code E adjustments. Use an Excel VLOOKUP to match these against reimbursements. File cases for all unmatched negative adjustments older than 30 days.
Week 3: The Returns Reconciliation. Download the FBA Customer Returns report and the Payments refund log. Identify any refunds issued more than 45 days ago that lack a corresponding return event or automatic reimbursement. Initiate removal orders for any high-ticket unsellable inventory to inspect for switch fraud.
Week 4: Case Management and Escalations. Log into Seller Central's Case Log. Review every open reimbursement claim. If an agent has requested more information, you must reply within 48 hours, or the system will auto-resolve the case as 'Answered', effectively killing your momentum. Escalate any cases that have been repeatedly rejected despite providing valid documentation.

By distributing these tasks across the month, you avoid the overwhelming administrative burden of auditing an entire year's worth of inventory data at once. Consistency is the key to maximizing your claim recovery rate.

9. Advanced Appeals: Escaping the 'Need More Info' Loop

One of the most maddening aspects of the FBA claim timeline is dealing with offshore Seller Support teams who rely heavily on copy-and-paste macro responses. You may submit a perfectly valid commercial invoice, only to receive an automated reply stating, 'The invoice provided does not meet our criteria.' This creates a frustrating loop that drains your time.

When dealing with repeated, nonsensical rejections, you must change your approach. Stop arguing with the frontline agent and politely demand an escalation to a specialized internal team. Use the following template to break the loop:

Dear Amazon Seller Support, I am writing to firmly request an immediate escalation of Case ID [Insert Case ID] to the Captive Team or a US-based manual investigator. This case has been incorrectly rejected multiple times by frontline agents citing 'invalid invoices.' However, the attached commercial invoice explicitly meets every single requirement outlined in Amazon's FBA reimbursement policy. 1. It is dated [Date], which is prior to the shipment creation. 2. It clearly displays the supplier's full contact information at [Supplier Address]. 3. It clearly displays my business entity, [Your Business Name], exactly as registered on Seller Central. 4. The line item for ASIN [Insert ASIN] shows a purchased quantity of [Quantity], covering the [Missing Quantity] units missing from this shipment. Please review the attached PDF, which I have highlighted for your convenience, and process the reimbursement for the missing inventory. If this is rejected again without specific, actionable feedback regarding which exact policy the invoice violates, I will be forced to escalate this discrepancy to the Executive Seller Relations team. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. [Your Name]

By structuring your responses with bulleted facts, referencing their exact policy requirements, and politely threatening executive escalation, you force the support agent to actually read the documentation rather than blindly clicking the rejection macro.

10. Real-World Case Studies: The ROI of Strict Timeline Management

Understanding the theory behind the FBA claim timeline is important, but seeing the real-world financial impact is what drives action. Here are two anonymized case studies highlighting how strict adherence to claim deadlines saved businesses from severe losses.

A mid-sized electronics seller shipped 12 pallets of high-margin Bluetooth speakers to a fulfillment center in Texas. The shipment was marked 'Delivered' by the carrier, but Amazon's system never moved it to 'Receiving'. Four months passed. The seller, following their monthly SOP, realized the shipment was dangerously close to the 9-month inbound deadline. They opened a case.

Amazon initially denied the claim, stating they had no record of the trailer arriving. Because the seller had meticulously maintained physical files, they immediately uploaded the stamped Bill of Lading showing an Amazon employee's signature and the trailer seal number. Faced with irrefutable proof of delivery provided well within the 9-month window, Amazon's investigative team escalated the issue. Unable to physically locate the 12 pallets in the warehouse, they issued a full reimbursement payout of $15,400 to the seller's account.

A high-volume apparel brand operating for two years had never filed a warehouse lost/damaged claim, assuming Amazon's automated systems handled everything. After learning about the 18-month deadline, they initiated a massive audit of their Inventory Ledger dating back a year and a half. They discovered hundreds of individual Code M and Code E adjustments across dozens of SKUs that had never been auto-reimbursed.

By aggressively filing claims over a two-week period, ensuring they hit the 18-month deadline for their oldest losses, they successfully recovered over $4,500 in lost inventory capital. Had they waited just two more months to perform this audit, nearly a third of those claims would have permanently expired under the 18-month rule.

11. Essential Tools to Optimize the Process

Manually downloading CSVs and running Excel VLOOKUPs is feasible for sellers doing under $50,000 a month in revenue. However, as your catalog expands and you ship thousands of units a week, the sheer volume of data makes manual auditing incredibly prone to human error.

To streamline this, successful operators leverage specialized software. There are automated reimbursement services that securely connect to your Seller Central via API, scan your ledger for discrepancies, and automatically file cases on your behalf for a percentage of the recovered funds.

Additionally, preventing errors at the source is the best strategy. Ensuring your warehouse prep team is using perfect labeling minimizes the chances of inventory going missing during the inbound phase. Utilizing utilities like the Amazon FBA 30-Up Cropper guarantees that every thermal FNSKU label is perfectly scaled, preventing scanner read errors at the fulfillment center and drastically reducing the need to navigate the grueling FBA claim timeline in the first place.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does the Amazon FBA reimbursement process typically take from start to finish?
The end-to-end timeline varies dramatically by claim type and documentation quality. Simple claims (e.g., standard items lost in transit with clear carrier tracking) can be fully resolved and funded within 5 to 10 business days. Highly complex claims (e.g., massive LTL freight shortages, high-value damaged inventory requiring photographic evidence, or customer switch fraud) may bounce back and forth between specialized support teams, taking anywhere from 30 to 60 days. Amazon's official internal policy dictates they aim to review initial claim submissions within 45 days, but significant delays occur if they demand additional documentation like revised invoices or secondary proof of delivery.
What exact documents do I need to submit to guarantee an FBA reimbursement claim approval?
To ensure first-pass approval and avoid timeline delays, your documentation toolkit must be pristine. The essential documents include: 1) A finalized Commercial Invoice from your supplier (dated before the shipment, showing matching buyer/seller addresses and correct ASIN quantities). Pro-forma invoices are strictly rejected. 2) Ironclad Proof of Delivery (POD). For small parcels, this means official carrier delivery logs (UPS/FedEx). For LTL freight, this requires a stamped Bill of Lading (BOL) physically signed by an Amazon warehouse employee upon trailer arrival. 3) Inventory reconciliation reports exported directly from your Seller Central ledger showing the exact transaction defect codes. For physical damage claims, providing high-resolution photographs of the damaged packaging and product is practically mandatory.
Are there specific legal deadlines for filing an FBA reimbursement claim before it expires?
Yes, Amazon strictly enforces non-negotiable chronological deadlines, and any claim filed after these windows is automatically denied without the possibility of appeal. For warehouse lost or damaged inventory (adjustments occurring inside the fulfillment center), you have exactly 18 months from the date of the ledger defect. For customer return discrepancies (e.g., buyer was refunded but never returned the item), the window is 18 months from the refund date. For inbound shipment shortages, you have only 9 months from the date the shipment was created. For FBA weight and dimensional fee overcharges, the window is an incredibly short 90 days.
How does Amazon calculate the financial value of my reimbursement? Will I get my full retail price?
No, you will not receive your full retail asking price. Amazon calculates the reimbursement value based on the 'Estimated Payout' formula. They take the median sales price of your ASIN over the trailing 18 months, and subtract the FBA fulfillment fees and referral fees that you would have normally paid if the item had sold to a customer. Essentially, they reimburse you for the profit and cost of goods, minus their cut. If the item has no sales history, they apply a default category algorithmic value. If this default value is mathematically lower than your wholesale cost of goods sold, you can dispute it by providing your supplier invoices to prove the actual replacement cost.
What happens if Amazon outright rejects my FBA reimbursement claim? Can I appeal the decision?
If your claim is rejected, you absolutely can and should appeal, but you must act quickly. Claims are typically rejected due to insufficient documentation, expired timelines, or mismatched quantity data. When rejected, you are placed in a 'Need More Info' status. You generally have a short window (often 48 hours to 5 days, depending on the case) to respond before the case auto-closes. You must carefully read the specific reason for rejection, gather the corrected information (such as a better copy of an invoice or a highlighted BOL), and resubmit. If you face repeated generic rejections, you should formally request in the case log that the issue be escalated to a captive team investigator for manual review.