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Understanding Amazon fees

Amazon charges sellers dozens of distinct fee types across a settlement period. Here's what each one is, how it appears in the raw file, and how TrueBooks classifies it into your Xero books.

Seller commissions (referral fees)

The most common fee: every sale on Amazon's marketplace carries a referral fee, also called a commission. Amazon deducts it as a percentage of the sale price — rates vary by category, typically 7–15% for most product types. In the settlement file this appears as:

Order / ItemFees / Commission

TrueBooks routes these to the Seller Fees bucket (AMZ3) at INPUT2 (20% reclaimable VAT on expenses) for UK domestic orders. Amazon VAT-registers its UK marketplace, so the commission charge carries UK VAT and you can reclaim it as input tax.

Refund commissions

When an order is refunded, Amazon typically refunds part of its commission — it keeps a small administration fee. The refund commission credit appears as a separate row in the settlement and is classified to AMZ3 as well, partially offsetting the original charge.

FBA fulfilment fees

If you use Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA), Amazon picks, packs, and ships your orders from its fulfilment centres and charges a per-unit fulfilment fee based on the size and weight of the item. In the settlement:

Order / ItemFees / FBAPerUnitFulfillmentFee

TrueBooks routes these to the FBA Fees bucket (AMZ4). The VAT treatment depends on whether the order is domestic or international:

See UK VAT & MF orders for the full story on how TrueBooks distinguishes domestic from international FBA fees.

FBA customer return processing fees

When a customer returns an FBA item, Amazon charges a fee to process the return. This appears in the settlement as two related rows: a per-order base fee and a per-unit processing fee. Both are classified to AMZ4 (FBA Fees) at INPUT2. Confusingly, these sometimes appear under a Refund transaction type rather than Order — TrueBooks handles this regardless of which transaction-type Amazon emits them under.

FBA shipping chargebacks

For certain order types, Amazon charges a shipping-related fee back to the seller. These are labelled ShippingChargeback in the settlement file and route to AMZ4. International variants use REVERSECHARGES for the same reason as the main fulfilment fee.

Storage fees

Amazon charges for space your inventory occupies in its fulfilment centres. There are three variants:

TrueBooks catches all three variants and routes them to the Storage Fees bucket (AMZ5) at INPUT2. The classifier matches any amount-description containing the word "storage" so new sub-variants Amazon introduces tend to be captured automatically.

Advertising fees

Amazon deducts advertising spend — Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display — directly from your settlement balance rather than invoicing you separately. In the file:

other-transaction / Advertising / Advertising

TrueBooks routes these to Advertising (AMZ6) at INPUT2. Amazon charges UK VAT on advertising served to UK sellers, so this is fully reclaimable input tax.

Digital services fees

Amazon also deducts a digital services fee in some territories — a separate charge for marketplace digital services, distinct from the referral fee. This is routed to AMZ3 (Seller Fees) when it appears.

Reimbursements

Reimbursements are credits Amazon pays you for inventory it lost or damaged while in its fulfilment network. They appear as positive amounts under:

other-transaction / other-transaction / Reimbursement

TrueBooks routes these to Inventory Reimbursements (AMZ2) at NONE — meaning they're excluded from the VAT return entirely. Reimbursements represent compensation for stock write-offs, not taxable sales. If your accountant prefers them in a different account (some prefer a separate Amazon Reimbursements ledger), adjust the AMZ2 account mapping in Accounts & Taxes.

Liquidation proceeds

If Amazon sells aged or overstock inventory on your behalf through its Liquidations programme, the proceeds appear as Liquidations / Principal in the settlement. These are classified to AMZ2 at NONE — the same logic as reimbursements: it's a recovery on written-down stock, not a normal product sale.

Retrocharges

A retrocharge is an after-the-fact tax adjustment Amazon issues when it discovers a tax calculation error on an older order. They appear under the Order_Retrocharge transaction type and are routed to AMZ1 (Amazon Sales) at OUTPUT2 — they're income-side VAT corrections and should flow through your sales account.

Variable closing fees and other charges

Amazon occasionally charges category-specific fees — variable closing fees for media products, regulatory fees, and similar. These all route to AMZ3 (Seller Fees). If TrueBooks encounters an amount-description it hasn't seen before, it falls back to the Other bucket rather than misclassifying — see how classification works for the full fallback logic.

Subscription fees

Amazon's monthly Professional selling plan fee — the flat subscription for maintaining a Professional seller account — appears as Subscription Fee under other-transaction. TrueBooks routes this to AMZ3 (Seller Fees) at INPUT2. If you're on an Individual selling plan, this line won't appear in your settlements.

Promotions and discount funding

When you run a coupon or a percentage-off promotion in Amazon's promotions system, the discount amount shows up in your settlement as a negative line under Promotion / Shipping or Promotion / Principal. TrueBooks routes promotional discounts back against the Sales bucket (AMZ1) — they reduce your reported income, which is the correct treatment since the customer paid the discounted amount and you funded the difference. Shipping promotions route to AMZ1's shipping sub-category.

Warehouse damage and lost inventory credits (SAFE-T claims)

When Amazon's SAFE-T programme grants you a seller-funded credit — for example, when Amazon's carrier loses or damages an item during a seller-fulfilled return — the credit appears as a positive adjustment under other-transaction / Adjustment. TrueBooks routes these to AMZ2 (Inventory Reimbursements) at NONE, the same as FBA-warehouse reimbursements, since they represent compensation for a stock event rather than a product sale.

How to check fee amounts for a specific settlement

Open the settlement from your Settlements list and click Preview. The preview table shows every classified category with its gross, tax, and net — so you can see at a glance how much Amazon took in FBA fees, how much went to advertising, and what's left as net disbursement. You can also click through to the raw line view to see individual settlement rows, which is useful if you're reconciling against Amazon's fee schedule.