FBM Policy Updates
All Amazon fbm policy policy changes and updates for US and Canada sellers. 24 updates tracked.
Amazon Adds LTL Shipping Labels to Buy Shipping for Heavy and Bulky Items From October, Regional Delivery Pricing Planned for Early 2027 (Accelerate 2026)
At Amazon Accelerate 2026, Amazon Supply Chain Services outlined new tools for sellers who ship heavy and bulky items themselves. Starting in October, sellers can buy less-than-truckload (LTL) shipping labels through Amazon Buy Shipping, both in Seller Central and through third-party shipping software, at Amazon's negotiated rates and with protection from late deliveries. Amazon also plans regional delivery pricing for heavy and bulky items in early 2027, so sellers can charge different shipping fees by region instead of one flat rate. Amazon did not publish specific label prices.
Read summary →Amazon Shipping Publishes Its 2026 Peak Season Demand Surcharges — $0.75 Per Package, $11.90 Additional Handling, $117.50 Large Package and $590 Extra Heavy at the November 22 to December 26 Peak, Running October 25, 2026 Through January 16, 2027
Amazon Shipping — Amazon's standalone parcel carrier for seller-fulfilled orders, not FBA — has published its 2026 peak season demand surcharge schedule. The surcharges run from October 25, 2026 through January 16, 2027 in three tiers, with the highest rates between November 22 and December 26. At the peak tier the per-package demand surcharge is $0.75, Additional Handling is $11.90, the Large Package fee is $117.50 and the Extra Heavy Package fee is $590. The shoulder tiers on either side sit at $0.50, $8.75, $96.25 and $530. Amazon states these amounts are additional to your contracted rates and apply automatically during the listed dates, with no action required from existing shippers. Supply Chain Dive's coverage notes the 2026 fees are higher than last year's holiday fees. This is a separate cost line from the FBA holiday peak fulfillment fee, which starts earlier on October 15, and Amazon's 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge introduced in April 2026 still applies on top.
Read summary →Amazon Narrows FBM Enforcement Again — From August 31, 2026 a Single Offer That Creates an Account Health Risk Can Be Temporarily Deactivated Instead of the Whole Selling Account
Amazon has extended its offer-level enforcement model to a wider set of seller-fulfilled performance policies. According to reporting by Amazon seller law firm Rosenbaum Famularo (amazonsellers.attorney), published September 5, 2026, Amazon said that beginning August 31, 2026, when an individual FBM offer creates an Account Health risk under specified performance policies, Amazon may temporarily deactivate the affected offer rather than place the seller's entire selling account at risk. The change covers four performance measurements: Cancellation Rate, Late Shipment Rate, Order Defect Rate, and On-Time Delivery Rate. Amazon reportedly sends a warning email before an affected offer is deactivated, and directs sellers to the Account Health dashboard to resolve the issue and request reactivation. This is the same containment logic Amazon applied to On-Time Delivery Rate alone on February 28, 2026, now generalised across the other three seller-fulfilled metrics. Importantly, it does not make accounts safe: full account deactivation remains available to Amazon for other violation types, including intellectual property complaints, authenticity claims, review manipulation, and related-account violations.
Read summary →Amazon Improves Shipping Settings Automation Delivery Promises for Seller-Fulfilled Orders — Sellers No Longer Need to Set a Shipping Service Priority
On August 28, 2026 Amazon announced that delivery promises for seller-fulfilled orders are now more accurate, following an improvement to how Shipping Settings Automation (SSA) calculates them. The practical change for sellers is that SSA no longer requires you to set a shipping service priority — Amazon derives the promise itself rather than relying on a seller-ranked list of shipping services. SSA already calculates ZIP-code-level transit time from the seller's warehouse to the buyer's address using carrier data, and Amazon has consistently said more accurate promises tend to produce faster displayed delivery dates.
Read summary →UPS 2026 Peak Season Surcharges Start September 27, 2026 and Run Through January 16, 2027 — Additional Handling Rises to $11.90 and Large Package to $117.50 at Peak, While the Flat Ground Residential and Ground Saver Demand Charge Jumps to $0.75 From $0.60
UPS has published its 2026-27 peak season surcharge schedule and it arrives in two waves. Size- and handling-driven fees — Additional Handling and the Large Package Surcharge — switch on September 27, 2026. The flat per-package demand surcharges on Ground Residential, Ground Saver and air services follow on October 25, 2026. Everything peaks between November 22 and December 26 and stays in effect until January 16, 2027. The shape of the increase matters more than the headline: coverage of the schedule reports that handling and size charges are up roughly 6% to 10% year over year, while the flat service-level demand charges are up roughly 22% to 25%. That means the fee that hits every single residential parcel you ship went up far faster than the fee that only hits your bulky ones.
Read summary →USPS Adds an Average 6% Peak Season Surcharge From October 4, 2026 Through January 17, 2027 — Stacking on Top of the 8% Transportation Surcharge Already Running Through the Same Date
The U.S. Postal Service has filed a temporary peak season price increase averaging about 6% on its competitive package products, effective October 4, 2026 and running through January 17, 2027, pending Postal Regulatory Commission review. It covers Priority Mail Express, Priority Mail, USPS Ground Advantage and Parcel Select in both retail and commercial versions. Two things make this bite harder than the headline number. First, it is larger than last year's holiday surcharges, which averaged 4.9% to 5.8%. Second, it stacks: the 8% transportation-related surcharge USPS put in place in April 2026 also runs through January 17, 2027, so both are live for the entire peak window. With UPS and FedEx peak surcharges also starting in late September and October, the cheapest FBM lane is no longer reliably cheap.
Read summary →Amazon Buy Shipping Now Accepts Linked Carrier Accounts for USPS, UPS Roadie, UPS Mail Innovations, OnTrac, and DHL eCommerce — Use Your Own Negotiated Rates and Keep OTDR Protection (July 27, 2026)
Amazon announced that self-shipping sellers can now link their own carrier accounts to Amazon Buy Shipping for five additional carriers: USPS, UPS Roadie, UPS Mail Innovations, OnTrac, and DHL eCommerce. Linking lets you buy labels at your own carrier-negotiated rates while still qualifying for Buy Shipping protections — on-time delivery rate protection and refunds for delivery-related claims. The carrier, not Amazon, bills you for the label, and those labels count toward any minimum shipped-volume commitment you have with that carrier. Sellers can link multiple accounts and assign them to different ship-from locations.
Read summary →FedEx 2026 Peak Season Surcharges Begin September 28, 2026 and End January 17, 2027 — Ground Residential and Home Delivery Demand Peaks at $0.80 Per Package, Up From $0.65, With Ground Economy at $4.05 and Additional Handling at $11.85
FedEx's 2026 peak season surcharge schedule runs in two phases. Accessorial fees — Additional Handling, Oversize and the Ground Unauthorized Package charge — start September 28, 2026. Service-level demand surcharges on Ground Residential, Home Delivery, Ground Economy and Express start October 26, 2026. Rates step up for the November 23 to December 27 peak window, fall back to shoulder-season levels from December 28, and end January 17, 2027. The steepest percentage move is on the Ground Residential and Home Delivery demand surcharge, which peaks at $0.80 per package against $0.65 at the 2025 peak. Express demand surcharges are broken out by service level — Overnight, 2Day and Express Saver each carry their own rate.
Read summary →Amazon Opens a Pallet Delivery Option for Seller-Fulfilled Amazon Business Orders — 80% of Business Buyers Picked Pallets Over Faster Shipping in the Pilot (July 2026)
Amazon has made a pallet delivery option available to sellers for Fulfilled by Merchant orders placed by Amazon Business customers. Instead of breaking a large B2B order into many parcels, sellers can offer the order palletized — the format business buyers with docks and receiving teams generally prefer. Amazon says that during its pilot, 80% of business customers chose pallet delivery when it was offered, and that most of those buyers picked pallets over faster shipping options. The move is part of a broader push to get third-party sellers to court business buyers ahead of Amazon's Amazon Business Reshape conference in Nashville in October 2026.
Read summary →USPS Introduces a $50 Non-Disputable HazMat Noncompliance Fee for Undeclared Hazardous Materials — FBM Sellers Shipping Everyday Items Like Perfume, Nail Polish, and Lithium-Battery Electronics Are at Risk Starting July 12, 2026 (July 2026)
The U.S. Postal Service has added a $50 HazMat Noncompliance Fee that applies when hazardous materials are detected in a shipment but the customer did not appropriately declare and label them, effective July 12, 2026. The fee applies to any competitive commercial product, including USPS Ground Advantage — the service many FBM and Seller Fulfilled Prime sellers rely on. The catch for sellers is that a large number of ordinary retail products are regulated hazardous materials: lithium batteries in phones, laptops, and electronics; perfume and cologne and other flammable liquids; aerosols and hairspray; nail polish; essential oils; hand sanitizer; and inks, stains, and varnishes. USPS has described the $50 charge as non-disputable and non-refundable, so a single mislabeled parcel is a flat, unrecoverable cost. Sellers who declare and label these items correctly avoid the fee — the standard hazmat handling fee is $7.50 on Priority Mail, and USPS is establishing a Ground Advantage hazmat handling fee that starts at $0 with the option to rise later.
Read summary →Amazon Raises Seller Fulfilled Prime Delivery-Speed Thresholds — Standard-Size One-Day Coverage Jumps From 30% to 40% of Page Views, With Higher Bars Across Every Size Tier Effective July 6, 2026
Effective July 6, 2026, Amazon tightened the delivery-speed requirements sellers must meet to keep their Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) eligibility, raising the share of Prime page views that must show fast delivery across all three size tiers. For standard-size items, the one-day coverage threshold rose from 30% to 40% of page views and the two-day threshold from 70% to 75% (five-day stays at 90%). Oversize one-day coverage moved from 10% to 15% (with a new 80% five-day bar), and extra-large two-day coverage moved from 15% to 25% (with a 60% five-day bar). To ease the transition, Amazon is excluding weekends from speed-metric evaluation through October 17, 2026, and says it will launch a ZIP-code-level delivery-promise tool in September 2026 so sellers can set shipping times, weekend availability, and cut-off times per delivery ZIP.
Read summary →Amazon Requires a 90% Business Hour Delivery Rate on Seller-Fulfilled Amazon Business Orders From September 30, 2026 — Miss It by October 30 and Your FBM Offers Can Be Deactivated for Business Buyers
Amazon has set a hard performance floor on a metric most FBM sellers have never had to manage. Starting September 30, 2026, sellers in the US store must maintain a Business Hour Delivery Rate (BHDR) of 90% or higher on seller-fulfilled shipments going to Amazon Business customers. BHDR is not about hitting the promised delivery date — it measures whether the package actually arrived during the business customer's operating hours, which means a parcel dropped at 9pm or on a day the office is closed counts against you even if it was technically on time. Amazon's announcement says sellers below 90% on September 30 get a notification and improvement recommendations; if the rate has not recovered by October 30, seller-fulfilled offers may be deactivated for Amazon Business customers. FBA offers and standard retail offers are not affected. The timing is the problem: the enforcement window sits directly on top of Q4 peak, when carrier delivery timing is at its least predictable.
Read summary →Amazon Sets 90% Business Hour Delivery Rate Requirement for Seller-Fulfilled Amazon Business Orders Starting September 30, 2026 (July 2026)
Amazon has announced a new performance requirement for merchant-fulfilled (MFN) sellers who ship to Amazon Business customers in the US store. Starting September 30, 2026, these sellers must maintain a Business Hour Delivery Rate of 90% or higher — the share of seller-fulfilled shipments to Amazon Business buyers that arrive within the buyer's operating hours, measured over a rolling 14-day period. Sellers below 90% on September 30 will be notified with improvement recommendations, and if their rate has not improved by October 30, their seller-fulfilled offers may be deactivated for Amazon Business customers. The requirement applies only to seller-fulfilled shipments destined for Amazon Business customers; FBA and consumer (retail) orders are excluded. Amazon says shipments fulfilled using Automated Handling Time, Shipping Settings Automation, and Amazon Buy Shipping together are guaranteed to meet the requirement.
Read summary →Amazon Will Take Over Handling-Time Settings for FBM SKUs That Consistently Ship Faster Than Stated, Starting June 29, 2026
Amazon is tightening how it enforces handling-time accuracy for seller-fulfilled (FBM) listings, with the change taking effect June 29, 2026. Handling time is the period between when a customer places an order and when the seller hands the package to a carrier, and Amazon uses it to calculate the delivery dates shoppers see. Under the update, Amazon will flag SKUs that are consistently shipped at least one day faster than their stated handling time and require sellers to update those SKUs within 30 days. Sellers can comply either by enabling Automated Handling Time, which sets the window based on recent shipping history, or by keeping accurate manual SKU-level handling times. If a seller does not provide an accurate handling time, Amazon will start managing the affected SKUs on the seller's behalf and provide late shipment rate protection for 180 days. The policy applies to professional-plan sellers and excludes custom, handmade, and bulky less-than-truckload shipments.
Read summary →Amazon Tightens Seller Fulfilled Prime Delivery-Speed Requirements — Higher One- and Two-Day Thresholds Take Effect July 6, 2026 (Announced May 26, 2026)
Amazon is raising the minimum delivery-speed thresholds that Seller Fulfilled Prime (SFP) sellers must hit to keep the Prime badge on their seller-fulfilled listings, effective July 6, 2026. For standard-size items, sellers must show a one-day delivery promise on at least 40% of Prime customer page views (up from 30%) and a two-day promise on at least 75% (up from 70%); the five-day threshold stays at 90%. Oversize items move to 15% one-day (up from 10%) and 80% five-day, and extra-large items move to 25% two-day (up from 15%) and 60% five-day. Amazon said it will launch a new tool in September 2026 that lets sellers enter shipping times, weekend shipping availability, and cut-off times at the individual delivery-zip-code level, feeding those inputs directly into Amazon's delivery-estimate calculation. As a transition cushion, weekends are excluded from the speed-metric evaluation until October 17, 2026, after which weekends are folded back into the calculation — though sellers must still fulfill weekend orders during that window. Amazon scheduled support webinars for June 8 and June 15, 2026.
Read summary →USPS Eliminates Ounce-Based Rate Tiers for Ground Advantage Commercial — Lightweight FBM Parcels Priced Like a 12–16 oz Package Starting July 12, 2026
As part of its July 2026 competitive price filing, the U.S. Postal Service is removing ounce-based rate differentiation for published Commercial USPS Ground Advantage prices, effective July 12, 2026. Today, sub-pound parcels are priced across several ounce bands (e.g., 1–4 oz, 4–8 oz, 8–12 oz, 12–15.999 oz); after the change, every published-rate parcel weighing 1 oz up to 15.999 oz is billed at the rate currently applied to the heaviest 12–15.999 oz band. According to USPS's filing with the Postal Regulatory Commission, this raises Ground Advantage Commercial prices by an average of 11.8%, with the steepest increases falling on the lightest packages. The change does not affect customers on negotiated commercial rates, and USPS says it aligns Ground Advantage with Parcel Select, which dropped ounce-based rate differences in 2024. This is a separate change from the dimensional-weight divisor cut that takes effect the same day — together they raise USPS costs for FBM and Seller Fulfilled Prime sellers who ship small, lightweight items at published rates.
Read summary →USPS Lowers Dimensional-Weight Divisor From 166 to 139 — Bulky, Lightweight Packages Cost More Starting July 12, 2026
The U.S. Postal Service is lowering its dimensional-weight (DIM) divisor from 166 to 139 across all domestic competitive products — USPS Ground Advantage, Parcel Select, Priority Mail, and Priority Mail Express — effective July 12, 2026. Billable weight is calculated as a package's volume divided by the divisor, so a smaller divisor produces a higher dimensional weight, making large but lightweight packages more expensive to ship even though published base rates stay largely unchanged. USPS frames the move as aligning its DIM pricing with industry standards (UPS and FedEx already use a 139 divisor for commercial rates). FBM and Seller Fulfilled Prime sellers who ship bulky, low-density items via USPS will see higher per-label costs, stacking on top of the 8% USPS fuel surcharge in effect since April 2026.
Read summary →Amazon and USPS Reach New Delivery Deal: 20% Volume Cut Instead of Planned Two-Thirds Reduction
Amazon and the U.S. Postal Service signed a revised delivery agreement on April 6, 2026, in which Amazon will reduce USPS package volume by roughly 20%—far less than the two-thirds cut Amazon had threatened earlier in the year. USPS will continue handling approximately 1 billion Amazon packages annually, preserving about $6 billion in revenue for the agency. While the deal averts a USPS financial crisis, the 20% volume reduction still means USPS must spread its fixed infrastructure costs across fewer packages, likely pressuring it to raise rates for third-party shippers—including FBM sellers—who depend on it for affordable last-mile delivery.
Read summary →USPS Adds 8% Fuel Surcharge on Package Shipping Starting April 26
The U.S. Postal Service announced a temporary 8% price increase on competitive package products — including Priority Mail, Priority Mail Express, USPS Ground Advantage, and Parcel Select — effective April 26, 2026 through January 17, 2027. The surcharge is driven by a 40% spike in global crude oil prices and comes on top of a 7.8% general USPS rate increase already implemented in January 2026, creating a cumulative year-over-year cost jump of nearly 16% for high-volume shippers. FBM sellers who rely on USPS for affordable ground shipping face immediate margin pressure.
Read summary →Amazon Shop Direct Opens to External Merchants via Product Feed Integration
Amazon expanded its Shop Direct program by opening product feed integration to all merchants through three authorized syndicators: Feedonomics, Salsify, and CEDCommerce. The program surfaces merchant products inside Amazon Search and the Rufus AI shopping assistant, but directs buyers to complete checkout on the merchant's own website. Sellers operating their own D2C sites can now gain Amazon-level visibility without listing products for FBA or marketplace fulfillment.
Read summary →UPS Discontinues Air and Ground Shipping Documents (ASD/GSD Prepaid Labels) Effective May 15, 2026 — FBM Sellers Have Until Dec 31, 2026 to Use Existing Labels
Amazon notified merchant-fulfilled sellers via a Seller Central forum announcement that UPS is discontinuing the ability to order Air Shipping Documents (ASD) and Ground Shipping Documents (GSD) — also known as Prepaid Labels — effective May 15, 2026. UPS will continue to accept shipments using ASD/GSD labels until December 31, 2026, giving sellers a transition window to use up labels already in hand. The notice was sent to sellers whose accounts show ASD/GSD orders in 2025. Amazon recommends that affected sellers transition to digital shipping solutions such as Amazon Buy Shipping (which offers UPS, USPS, and FedEx rates with built-in tracking confirmation and account-health protection), direct carrier purchases from UPS/FedEx/USPS websites, third-party shipping software, or shipping integrators.
Read summary →Amazon Shifts OTDR Enforcement to Item Level for Seller-Fulfilled Orders
Amazon changed how it enforces the 90% On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) threshold for seller-fulfilled orders. Previously, falling below 90% triggered deactivation of the seller's entire catalog. Starting February 28, 2026, Amazon now identifies the specific listings most responsible for OTDR failures and deactivates only those listings — leaving the rest of the catalog active. Full account deactivation remains possible for repeated or severe violations.
Read summary →FBM Refund Processing Window Extended to 4 Calendar Days
For Fulfilled by Merchant orders, Amazon extended the refund processing window from two business days to four calendar days, giving FBM sellers slightly more time to process refunds before Amazon auto-issues them.
Read summary →Amazon Tightens Seller Fulfilled Prime: Trial Limits, Monthly Volume Minimums, and Size-Tier Evaluation
Amazon overhauled Seller Fulfilled Prime program rules effective June 29, 2025, adding several new operational restrictions. Sellers are now capped at three SFP trial attempts per calendar year — burning all three locks them out until January 1. Once enrolled, sellers must ship at least 100 Prime-eligible packages each calendar month, spread throughout the month, or face a reduced daily Prime order volume cap. Performance metrics are now evaluated separately by size tier, so poor OTDR in one tier no longer jeopardizes Prime eligibility across all product categories.
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