At Amazon's scale, inventory gets lost, damaged, refunded without being returned, and mis-billed every single day — and every one of those events is money owed to you. But the reimbursement rules changed fundamentally between late 2024 and 2025: claims that used to enjoy an 18-month window now expire in roughly 60 days, payouts are based on your manufacturing cost instead of your sale price, and the auto-reimbursement system that was supposed to solve everything skips exactly the complex cases where most of the money hides. If your audit habits predate those changes, you are recovering a fraction of what you're owed — and probably not noticing.
Here is how the system actually works in 2026, and the monthly routine that keeps claims alive.
The Three Dates That Rewired Reimbursements
| Date | What changed | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| Oct 23, 2024 | Claim windows cut from 18 months to ~60 days for most claim types | Annual and quarterly audits are dead; monthly is the new minimum |
| Nov 1, 2024 | Proactive auto-reimbursement for units reported lost in fulfillment centers | Clean single-event losses pay themselves; messy ones still need you |
| Mar 10, 2025 | Payouts switched from estimated sale price to manufacturing cost | Your per-unit cost data on file is now a revenue input |
Cost-Based Reimbursements: The Math That Stung
Under the old model, a lost unit was reimbursed at roughly its estimated sale price minus fees. A unit you source for $6 and sell for $24 might net you $20+ back. Under the current model, Amazon pays your manufacturing cost — what you paid to source or produce the unit, excluding shipping, handling, and customs duties. That same lost unit now pays you about $6.
Worse is the blank-field scenario: if you never entered a per-unit manufacturing cost in Seller Central, Amazon uses its own internal estimate — and sellers consistently report those estimates land below true landed cost. Missing cost data doesn't just slow your claims down; it quietly reprices every future loss downward.
Highest-ROI two hours in 2026: enter an accurate, defensible per-unit manufacturing cost for every active SKU, backed by supplier invoices. Update it when sourcing changes. If Amazon questions a figure, the invoice trail settles it — a spreadsheet of intentions does not.
Claim Windows: The Deadline Table
Most claim types now close on Amazon's own short clocks. The windows cut both ways — file too late and the claim is void; file a returns claim too early and it's rejected because the buyer still has time to ship it back.
| Claim type | Filing window | Auto or manual? |
|---|---|---|
| Fulfillment center lost / damaged | Within 60 days of being reported lost or damaged | Auto pays most; you file the misses |
| Customer returns | 45–105 days after the refund date | Auto pays most; you file the misses |
| Removal orders lost in transit | 15–75 days from removal shipment creation | Always manual |
| Other removal claims | Within 60 days of the shipment being delivered back to you | Always manual |
| Re-evaluation of a decision | Within 90 days of the initial decision | Manual |
Reimbursements are capped at $5,000 per individual unit, and claims above that threshold need separate handling. Seller-caused issues — mislabeled products, wrong quantities shipped, wrong FC — are never reimbursable, so read the adjustment reason codes before filing.
What Auto-Reimbursement Catches — and What It Skips
Since November 2024, units identified as lost in a fulfillment center trigger a reimbursement automatically, usually within about five business days, with many warehouse-damage and customer-return cases covered the same way. That's genuinely useful — and it's also the most dangerous development in the policy, because it convinces sellers the problem is solved.
Automation handles the clean cases. It reliably misses the messy ones:
- Inbound receiving shortfalls — you shipped 500, Amazon checked in 480, and nobody flagged the 20.
- Returns that never return — a refund went out, the unit never re-entered sellable inventory, and it was never marked lost.
- Removal order losses — units that vanish between the fulfillment center and your door. Removal claims are always manual.
- Disposed or destroyed inventory without proper notice or credit.
- Fee overcharges from wrong dimensions or weights — not a "lost inventory" event at all, so automation never looks at them.
- Multi-leg discrepancies where a unit moves between fulfillment centers and the paper trail breaks.
These are exactly where the meaningful money sits, and they only surface when someone reconciles inbound records, settlement reports, returns data, and the inventory ledger against each other.
The Monthly Audit Routine (2–3 Hours)
Block time at the start of each month. The trailing 60-day scope matters — anything older is likely already unclaimable, so spend attention where the window is still open.
- Pull the core reports. Inventory Ledger, FBA customer returns report, Reimbursements report, and settlement reports for the trailing 60 days.
- Reconcile inbound. Compare units shipped per shipment ID against units received. Any shortfall is a claim — with shipment documentation.
- Reconcile returns. Match refunds against restock events. A refund with no corresponding unit back in sellable inventory is a claim (file after day 45, before day 105).
- Check removals. Every removal shipment gets tracked from creation to delivery. Lost in transit = manual claim between day 15 and 75.
- Audit fee charges. Compare actual fulfillment fees per ASIN against expected fees (a tool like our free FBA Profit Calculator gives you the expected number in seconds). Recurring gaps are re-measure requests waiting to be filed.
- Verify cost data. Spot-check that new SKUs and repriced SKUs have current manufacturing costs on file.
Sellers running a routine like this typically recover thousands per quarter at mid-sized volumes — because the claims are caught while they're still alive, and filed with the documentation attached before the clock expires.
When to Get Help
If you run a large catalog or multiple marketplaces, reimbursement auditing is a real workload — which is why agencies charge commission on recoveries. Before outsourcing, weigh the math: the audit above is 2–3 hours a month, and at 30–60% catalogs the biggest wins (inbound shortages, dimension overcharges) surface quickly once you look. If you'd rather have someone run it for you, that's a conversation: reach out through the contact page and describe your catalog size and marketplaces.
The Bottom Line
The reimbursement system in 2026 pays less per unit, expires faster, and automates only the easy half of the work. Sellers who updated their habits — accurate cost data on file, a monthly 60-day audit, claims filed with documentation — are recovering about as much money as ever. Sellers still running a quarterly audit built for the 18-month era are donating the difference to Amazon. The lost units didn't slow down; the paperwork did.