Amazon's Lagging Charges: An Accrual Schedule for Month-End and Year-End Close

By Bernardo Campelo, Forbes Business Council E-Commerce Leader, Amazon SPN Certified provider, Amazon SP-API authorized partner, and Founder of PrepVia.

As of October 29, 2026, Amazon's Seller Central help page for the FBA inbound placement service fee says: "You’ll be charged the FBA inbound placement service fee 45 days after your shipment is received, based on the quantities received." Forty-five days is longer than any month. Every placement fee posts in a later month than the receipt that created it, and for a company whose fiscal year ends on December 31, a shipment Amazon first receives from around November 17, 2026 on is charged in 2027.

Other Amazon charges also land after the activity behind them: monthly storage, Capacity Manager reservation fees, and removal and disposal fees charged as each unit is processed. If your books record Amazon fees on the date they post, each can land in a later period than the activity behind it. This post lays out when Amazon says each one is charged, and how a controller can build the accrual schedule that ties them back to the period they came from.

Every date and name below was checked on October 29, 2026 against Amazon's Seller Central help pages, its Selling Partner API documentation and an Amazon announcement in the Seller Forums, linked where they first appear. Amazon edits its help pages without dating them and changes its fee tables, so check them again before each close. This is general information, not accounting or tax advice: how you book these charges is a decision for your accountant.

The Amazon Charges That Post After the Activity

Amazon's payments reports record a fee when Amazon posts it. Its help page for Date Range reports says they "Support accrual accounting and sales to earnings-reconciliation workflows," and draws the line this way: "Settlement reports reflect payout timing. Date Range reports reflect activity timing." The Date/Time column, the same page says, "reflects the posted timestamp of transaction."

This is the schedule as Amazon's own pages state it:

The Placement Fee: 45 Days After Receipt, on What Was Received

The clock runs per shipment. Amazon's worked examples describe the fee as "charged 45 days after initial receive," and the same page says inbound placement fees "are charged 45 days after each shipment is received." Amazon's wording points to the first receipt of the shipment: not the day the truck leaves your dock, and not the day receiving finishes.

One shipping plan can become several shipments. Amazon's help page for the Send to Amazon confirmation step says that once you confirm, "a shipment ID is generated for each destination." Each of those shipment IDs is received on its own date, so each one carries its own 45-day clock.

The base is the units Amazon receives, at the option you chose. Since January 15, 2026, the placement fee page says, the fee "will be charged on received units based on the plan option selected when the shipment was created." Units that are misrouted, deleted or abandoned do not pay it anymore: Amazon's inbound defect fee page says that with this change "you will be only charged the new inbound defect fees" for those units.

The rate depends on size tier, shipping weight, the split option and the inbound location. Amazon says the fee "may be adjusted periodically within the ranges" it publishes, and that there may be higher fees for shipments sent to the West than to other parts of the country. Extra-large products are exempt, and inventory sent through Amazon Warehousing and Distribution pays no separate placement fee because AWD pricing covers it. The 2026 rates, tier by tier, are in our placement fee rate guide.

Amazon's page works one example through. A large standard item that weighs 6 lb, 100 units, minimal split, one location in the East region: the rate is $0.42 a unit and the total is $42.00, "charged 45 days after initial receive." That is the arithmetic of the accrual: units received, times a per-unit rate for the option you confirmed.

You See the Fee Before the Truck Leaves

The placement fee page says: "When you create a shipping plan, you’ll see a fee estimate for each available inbound placement option." In Send to Amazon, the list of options shows each one with "its delivery window, availability status, and estimated total cost."

Confirming the shipment is a commitment to that estimate. Amazon's confirmation page says: "By confirming shipping, you agree to send your shipment to the assigned fulfillment centers and pay any applicable estimated charges for shipping, preparation, labeling, and placement." The options do not wait, either: "Fulfillment center placement options are valid for only 72 hours pending shipment confirmation."

Keep only the placement line for the accrual. The estimated total cost in Send to Amazon adds an estimate of shipping costs based on partnered carrier rates, and Amazon says those shipping estimates "are for comparison purposes only and won't be charged."

Teams that build shipments through the Selling Partner API get the same figures. The placement fee page says "The API provides the same placement options and fees as Send to Amazon," and Amazon's Fulfillment Inbound documentation says each placement option comes back with "any fees/discounts associated with this option, the expiration date of the option, and the shipment IDs associated with each option." One trap for API teams: those shipment IDs are working IDs. The Inventory Ledger uses the shipmentConfirmationId that confirmPlacementOption creates, the FBA ID printed on the labels; look for it in Transaction view, and getShipment returns both.

"The placement fee is not a surprise. Amazon shows you the estimate before the truck leaves. The surprise is when it lands 45 days after Amazon receives the shipment, in a month you already closed."

Bernardo Campelo, Founder of PrepVia

One caution on timing. The estimate exists at confirmation, but Amazon charges "based on the quantities received," so a shipment still on the road at month-end has no received units for the fee to apply to. How to treat freight in transit is a matter of your accounting policy; the date Amazon's rule turns on is the receipt.

Building the Placement Fee Accrual, Shipment by Shipment

The schedule needs three things per shipment ID: a per-unit rate for the option you confirmed, the units received and the receipt date. The Inventory Ledger holds the last two. The placement fee report only shows the fee once it is charged, so the first one has to be recorded when you confirm.

• Keep the estimate with the shipment IDs. When a plan is confirmed, record its FBA shipment IDs, the ones on the labels, the placement option, the placement fee estimate Send to Amazon or the API showed for that option and the units it covers. Both give that estimate for the whole option, not per unit, and Amazon's documentation says option fees are "determined by an algorithm during shipment creation, not calculated using set rates." Divide the estimate by the units it covers for an average rate. When the plan mixes size tiers or weights, the per-unit rates in Amazon's Revenue Calculator are a fallback, and the posted charge settles the difference.
• Pull the receipts at the close. Amazon's Inventory Ledger guide tells you to select Receipts in the Event type menu of the Detailed view, and says the Reference ID "is equivalent to FBA shipment ID." The Reference ID filter works only in the online view; in a download, group the Receipts rows by the Reference ID column. The Inventory Ledger report holds "up to 18 months of historical inventory data." Its Detailed view is "updated in near real time"; the monthly summary is generally ready "by the end of the second day of the month."
• Accrue what was received and not yet charged. For every shipment first received in the 45 days before the close, accrue the units received times the rate. Leave out units Amazon flags as misrouted: since January 15, 2026 they pay the inbound defect fee instead. Shipments received before that window should already show their charge.
• Match the charge when it posts. Amazon's placement fee page says to open Transaction view in the Payments dashboard, select Service fees and "Locate your shipment ID under the Order ID field in the transaction view." Its FBA inbound placement service fees report, under Payments on the Amazon Fulfillment Reports page, shows the charges "on shipping plan, shipment, and SKU levels."
• Reverse and explain the difference. Reverse the accrual against the posted charge. Look first at the units received, then at the rate, since Amazon says the fee may be adjusted periodically within its published ranges.

Say a calendar-year brand ships the large standard item from Amazon's example, at the same $0.42 rate, in three shipments. The dates below add exactly 45 days to the first receipt. Amazon does not say how it counts the day or in which time zone, so treat each date as approximate.

The placement fee accrual at December 31 is $1,764.00, all of it charged in 2027. Without it, that amount lands in January and February, against a year that did not receive the inventory.

Receiving can run for weeks. Amazon's page on reconciling a shipment says it "usually takes 2 to 30 days. In some cases, it will take up to 60 days," while another Amazon page says it "may take up to 21 days." Accrue on the units the Ledger shows at the close and let the posted charge settle the rest.

The unit side of the close, matching what your 3PL shipped against what Amazon's Ledger received, is in our post on three-way inventory reconciliation. Whether the fee lands in inventory cost or in expense is a separate policy question; our landed cost model counts it as part of the cost of getting a unit to Amazon rather than as a selling fee.

Storage, Capacity and Removals: The Monthly Lags

Amazon's monthly storage fee page gives the time of charge as "Monthly, typically between the 7th and 15th day of the month, in the month following when the fees were incurred." October through December is the peak period. For products that are not dangerous goods, the base rate is $2.40 a cubic foot for standard-size and $1.40 for oversize, against $0.78 and $0.56 from January through September, before any storage utilization surcharge. December storage, at peak rates, is charged in January.

Amazon's own estimate can arrive after a fast close is done. Its Monthly Storage Fees report "is generated between the 10th and 18th of each month," and the storage utilization surcharge for a month uses your ratio on the last day of that month. A close that finishes in the first week of the month estimates storage from its own average daily volume and Amazon's rate card; the posting is the true-up. Peak season storage math is in our post on Q4 peak storage fees.

Capacity reservations follow the same pattern. Amazon's Capacity Manager page says reservation fees "are charged after the end of the specified period," and gives the example of capacity granted "for October 1 through October 31," charged "in early November." What posts is the difference, if any, between the reservation fee and the performance credits earned, $0.15 for every dollar of sales generated with the extra capacity, so the amount is not final until the period closes and can be zero. How the reservation works is in our post on FBA capacity limits.

Removal and disposal fees moved to the unit level in 2026. In an announcement first posted on January 29, 2026 and later revised, Amazon said that from March 1 these fees "will be charged on a per-unit basis at the time each unit is removed or disposed of," where before they were charged "all at once when the entire removal or disposal order was completed." The change applies to orders created on or after March 1, and the fee rates did not change. Asked in the same thread whether an order canceled before its units are removed is still charged, an Amazon moderator answered that "if the cancellation is successful, you will not be charged."

The removal fee page says orders are typically processed in 14 business days, but processing "may take 30 business days or more during the holiday season and peak removal periods." A removal order placed in December can therefore be charged unit by unit into January. The disposal fee page carries the same March 1 note for disposals.

The Charges Amazon Does Not Date

Three charges can reach a closed month with no published date. Keep them on a watch list and look for them at every close.

• Partnered carrier adjustments. Amazon's Partnered Carrier page says small parcel charges appear as a service fee in your Payments report "24 hours after you accept the charge," and that canceling within 24 hours for small parcel or one hour for LTL and FTL avoids the charge. The same page warns that "Inaccurate information will result in charged fee adjustments," and that actual LTL fees can exceed the estimate if the carrier finds heavier pallets or a different freight class. It does not say when those adjustments post. The dispute side is in our post on partnered carrier fee adjustments.
• Inbound defect fees. Misrouted and deleted shipments trigger them, and so do arrival deadlines, which are not a billing lag: a domestic shipment that did not arrive "within 45 days of shipment creation," an international shipment that did not arrive within 75 days, or the rest of a multi-destination plan arriving more than 30 days after the first shipment. For shipments created since January 15, 2026, the fee is $0.32 a unit for small standard, $0.38 to $1.74 for large standard and up to $5.72 for large bulky. The page does not say when the fee posts. Disputes go in "within 90 days of the shipment problem notification," and the triggers are covered in our inbound defect fee guide.
• Reimbursement reversals. Amazon's reimbursement policy says that if a reimbursed item "is later found and returned to your inventory, we reserve the right to reverse the reimbursement credit." No window is given. The reimbursement itself is based on your sourcing cost, or on Amazon's own estimate if you have not provided one, and sourcing cost "excludes costs such as shipping, handling, customs duties, or other costs." Amazon does not name the placement fee there, so do not count on recovering it with a lost unit.

Two charges do not lag at all. Amazon's 2026 fulfillment fee page says "FBA fulfillment fees are calculated and charged when shipments leave fulfillment centers," and that holds for the holiday peak rates that run from October 15, 2026 to January 14, 2027. The aged inventory surcharge is assessed on an inventory snapshot on the 15th and "charged monthly, typically between the 18th and 22nd day of the month."

Year-End: The Last 45 Days of Receipts

For a company whose fiscal year ends on December 31, the arithmetic is short. November 16, 2026 plus 45 days is December 31. A shipment first received from around November 17 on is charged in 2027, and the last receipts of December are charged around February 14, 2027.

Amazon does not state how it counts the day or the time zone of the charge, so treat that boundary as approximate and let the posted charge true up the accrual. For a fiscal year that ends in another month, run the same count back 45 days from the last day of the year.

The other December charges follow the same calendar. December storage, at peak rates, is typically charged between January 7 and 15. A capacity reservation for December is charged after December ends, and removal orders placed late in December can be charged unit by unit into January.

Two housekeeping points. The placement fee report keeps "the prior 12 months of charges" and the Inventory Ledger 18 months, so download the year's receipts and charges while they are inside the window. And if your close still pulls GET_V2_SETTLEMENT_REPORT_DATA_FLAT_FILE or GET_V2_SETTLEMENT_REPORT_DATA_XML through the SP-API, Amazon's deprecation schedule set November 11, 2026 as their removal date, ahead of the year-end close; our settlement report post covers their replacement, the Flat File V2 report.

What to Ask Your 3PL

A prep center does not keep your books, set your accounting policy or book your accruals. What it can hand your finance team is the inbound side of the record.

• The shipment IDs and the option. Every FBA shipment ID in the plan, the placement option that was confirmed and the placement fee estimate Amazon showed for it.
• The ship date and the carrier. When each shipment left, with which carrier, and whether the freight went through Amazon's Partnered Carrier program.
• The count before Amazon's count. What the prep center received and shipped, so a gap in Amazon's receipts can be traced to the supplier, the prep center or Amazon.

PrepVia receives, inspects and counts inventory when it reaches our warehouse in Miami. Discrepancies are reported within 24 hours of arrival, with photos. Then we FNSKU-label the units and create and ship the inbound to Amazon.

PrepVia is Amazon SPN Certified and an Amazon SP-API authorized partner with its own integration, and our standard prep window is 24-36 hours. To size the placement fee for a shipment before it is built, use our placement fee calculator.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does Amazon charge the inbound placement fee?

Amazon's help page says 45 days after your shipment is received, based on the quantities received. Its examples say "charged 45 days after initial receive," and the clock runs separately for each shipment ID in a plan.

Does the fee follow where Amazon actually places the units?

No. Since January 15, 2026, Amazon charges the fee on received units based on the placement option selected when the shipment was created. Misrouted, deleted or abandoned units pay only the inbound defect fee.

How do I estimate the placement fee for an accrual?

Start from the placement fee estimate Send to Amazon or the Selling Partner API showed for the option you confirmed. It is a total for the option, so divide it by the units it covers for a per-unit rate; when the plan mixes size tiers or weights, Amazon's Revenue Calculator rates are a fallback. Multiply that rate by the units the Inventory Ledger shows as received for each FBA shipment ID, the one on the labels.

Where do I find the placement fee Amazon actually charged?

In Transaction view on the Payments dashboard, under Service fees, with the FBA shipment ID in the Order ID field. The FBA inbound placement service fees report shows the charges by shipping plan, shipment and SKU, and keeps the prior 12 months.

Which 2026 receipts are charged in 2027?

For a company with a December 31 year-end, shipments first received from around November 17, 2026 on, with the last December receipts charged around February 14, 2027. Amazon does not state how it counts the day or the time zone, so treat the boundary as approximate.

Which other Amazon fees post after the month they belong to?

Monthly storage, typically between the 7th and 15th of the following month; Capacity Manager reservation fees, after the period ends; and removal and disposal fees, unit by unit as Amazon processes them. Partnered carrier adjustments, inbound defect fees and reimbursement reversals have no published date.

Final Take

Amazon shows a placement fee estimate before the truck leaves and charges the fee 45 days after the shipment is received, on what was received. Storage, capacity reservations and removals post later too, each on a lag Amazon publishes.

The schedule is three columns per shipment ID: a per-unit rate, the units received and the receipt date, reconciled against the charge when it posts. Add a watch list for the charges Amazon does not date, and the fees stop landing in a month you already closed.