Amazon FBA Fee History: Every Increase Since 2015

The short version

Amazon changed US FBA fees every single year from 2015 through 2024, froze them for the first time in 2025, and resumed increases in 2026. The reference fee below, the one-pound band of the large standard-size rate card, went from $2.67 in 2015 to $4.76 with the 2026 fuel surcharge: up 78.3%, about 5.4% a year, while US consumer prices rose 41.4% over the same window.

• Fulfillment fee, 1 lb band: $2.67 (2015) to $4.60 base (2026), +72.3%.
• With the 3.5% fuel surcharge from April 17, 2026: $4.76, +78.3% in 11 years.
• US inflation over the same period: +41.4% (CPI-U, 2015 to May 2026). The fee grew nearly twice as fast.
• Off-peak storage: $0.54 per cubic foot (2016) to $0.78 today, after peaking at $0.87 in 2023.
• Seven new fee types appeared since 2022; 2025 was the only freeze year on record.

The reference fee, year by year

One number tracks the trend better than any average: the fee on the large standard-size, one-pound band of each rate card (non-peak, non-apparel). The table follows that band through every card from 2015 to 2026, with the percentage change each new card brought.

The series tracks each card’s published band fee, not one physical product’s bill. Until June 2021 Amazon added roughly 4 oz of packaging weight before picking a band, so a product weighing a full pound on the scale often billed one band higher. Every cell traces to Amazon’s own pages, archive.org captures of them, or cross-checked reproductions of the card where Amazon now requires a seller login; the source list sits at the end.

Fee growth vs US inflation

Indexed to 2015, the base band fee is up 72.3% and the all-in fee 78.3%, while US consumer prices rose 41.4% through May 2026. FBA fulfillment for this band got expensive nearly twice as fast as inflation: adjusted for CPI, the $2.67 fee of 2015 works out to about $3.78 in May 2026 dollars, against an actual all-in fee of $4.76.

The headline rate also understates the real gap. None of the fee types introduced since 2022, from inbound placement to returns processing, existed in 2015, so the true cost delta on many products is larger than the fulfillment line alone.

Every new fee since 2022

Rate increases are only half the story. Since 2022, Amazon has introduced seven fee types that did not exist before, and the per-unit math on many products moved more through these than through the headline rate cards. One of the seven has since been absorbed into base rates.

Storage fees over time

Monthly storage tells a different story than fulfillment: off-peak rates climbed 61% from 2016 to their 2023 peak, then Amazon cut them in 2024, the only cut to the standard off-peak rate on record. Q4 rates barely moved in a decade, from $2.25 to $2.40 per cubic foot, up just 6.7%.

Off-peak changes took effect mid-quarter (March 2016, April 2018, February 2022, April 2024, and so on), so the first months of a change year billed at the prior rate; the table shows the rate that applied for most of each year.

Year by year: what changed and when

Twelve years of changes follow, with effective dates. The pattern to internalize: Amazon announces in Q4, fulfillment changes land mid-January to mid-February, and storage or program changes follow in spring. Since 2022, October 15 opens peak-fee season, and since 2024, structural fees have replaced headline increases.

2015

February 18 raised pick-and-pack and weight-handling fees and applied dimensional weight to more sizes, putting the reference band at $2.67 across its three fee components ($1.00 order handling, $1.04 pick and pack, $0.63 weight handling). March raised standard-size storage. August extended long-term storage fees to 6-12 month inventory at $11.25 per cubic foot, and Small and Light launched mid-year.

2016

The fulfillment card took its biggest jump of the 2010s: the reference band rose 13.1% to $3.02. March storage climbed to $0.54 per cubic foot off-peak. October replaced the mild Q4 storage uplift of earlier years with real peak pricing: November-December storage jumped to $2.25 per cubic foot, more than four times the off-peak rate, while October itself got cheaper and November-December fulfillment fees were trimmed about 5% as a partial offset.

2017

February 22 merged order handling, pick-and-pack, and weight handling into one per-unit fulfillment fee, ending the three-component era. The reference band landed at $2.99, a rare optical decrease, while media items moved onto the same (higher) schedule and the $300-plus zero-fee perk died. Storage rose again to $0.64 off-peak and $2.35 for Q4, which now started in October instead of November.

2018

February raised the reference band 6.7% to $3.19 and dropped the seasonal fulfillment discount, making rates flat year-round. April added $0.05 to every storage tier, setting the $2.40 Q4 standard rate that still holds today. September switched long-term storage from semi-annual sweeps to monthly assessments on the 15th; a $0.50 per-unit minimum on year-old stock had arrived a month earlier.

2019

February split the standard sizes at 10 ounces and concentrated its increases in the heavier tiers, putting the new 10-16 oz band at $3.28. The 181-365-day long-term storage bracket was eliminated and the 365-plus minimum fell from $0.50 to $0.15 per unit. Referral fees dropped from 15% to 8% on beauty, health, and baby products priced $10 or less.

2020

February’s card averaged about 3% by Amazon’s own math, but the reference band rose 6.1% to $3.48, the largest standard-size move on that card. The flat $0.40 apparel surcharge gave way to a separate apparel rate schedule, and off-peak storage reached $0.75 per cubic foot. COVID then forced temporary relief: two weeks of storage fees waived in March and the April 15 long-term storage assessment skipped.

2021

The pandemic pushed the annual change to June 1, and the card came back restructured: the 4-ounce packaging-weight adder disappeared, 6-ounce bands arrived, and the one-pound band jumped 22.1% to $4.25, the biggest step in this table. Amazon framed the average at 2 to 3% after absorbing over $5 billion in COVID costs, and the redrawn bands really did cut some bills: a true one-pound product that packaging weight used to push into the $4.90 tier now paid $4.25. Storage held flat.

2022

January 18 raised fulfillment fees again (reported around 5% on average), the reference band reaching $4.52. April 28 added the first-ever fuel and inflation surcharge, 5% on every fulfillment fee, which Amazon positioned as a non-permanent mechanism. October 15 introduced the first holiday peak fulfillment fee, averaging $0.35 per unit, and May renamed long-term storage to the aged inventory surcharge while extending it to 271-365 day stock.

2023

January 17 folded the 5% surcharge into base rates, the reference band settling at $4.75, roughly what sellers had already been paying out of pocket since April. Quarter-pound bands arrived below one pound (half-pound bands above it). April brought two structural additions: the storage utilization surcharge for slow-turning catalogs and aged-inventory brackets starting at day 181. August 29 retired Small and Light in favor of Low-Price FBA for items under $10, about $0.30 more per unit for former Small and Light sellers.

2024

The biggest structural year since 2017 traded headline rates for new mechanics. April 15 cut standard fulfillment fees $0.20 per unit (the band fee fell to $4.55) and April 1 cut storage $0.09, but March 1 introduced the inbound placement fee averaging $0.27 per standard unit, April 1 added the low-inventory-level fee, and June 1 extended returns processing fees to every category above return-rate thresholds. Amazon itself projected a net increase of about $0.15 per unit once placement fees were counted.

2025

For the first time on record, Amazon froze everything: no referral increases, no FBA increases, no new fee types, announced in that exact language. Within the fee schedule the only movements were decreases, including $0.58 off large-bulky inbound placement and waived placement fees for qualifying new selection. The freeze lasted exactly one cycle before 2026 resumed increases.

2026

January 15 raised fulfillment an average $0.08 per unit and introduced three price bands per size tier, with items under $10 keeping discounted Low-Price rates. For the one-pound band that means $3.78 under $10, $4.60 at $10-50, and $4.86 over $50. The low-inventory fee moved to FNSKU-level measurement, and April 17 brought the second fuel surcharge in FBA history, 3.5% on fulfillment fees, which Amazon calls temporary.

What the pattern means for planning

Three planning rules fall out of eleven years of data. Budget roughly 5% average annual fee growth on fulfillment, expect the announcement between October and December with a mid-January effective date, and treat "temporary" surcharges as candidates for permanent base rates: the 5% fuel surcharge of 2022 never left, it just changed its name.

• Run new-product margins through the FBA calculator with the surcharge field set, then stress-test at +5%.
• Re-price January POs in October, when the next year’s card is usually public.
• Watch the fee families that grew fastest: storage-adjacent surcharges, not headline rates.

Method and sources

Every dated change above traces to Amazon’s own announcements, Amazon help pages, or archive.org captures of Amazon’s published rate cards, compiled and re-verified against primary captures in July 2026. Where Amazon’s current rate card sits behind a seller login (2024 onward), figures are cross-checked against Amazon’s announced deltas and multiple independent reproductions of the card. The fee series is each card’s large standard-size one-pound band at the non-peak rate; until June 2021, billed weight included roughly 4 oz of packaging, so a physical one-pound product often billed a band higher. The inflation comparison uses US CPI-U annual averages (October 2025 was never published because of the government shutdown, so the 2025 average uses 11 months). Corrections are welcome through the contact page; primary sources follow.

• Amazon 2026 fee announcement (October 2025, average +$0.08 per unit).
• Amazon 2025 fee announcement (the freeze year).
• Amazon 2024 fee announcement (inbound placement, low-inventory, returns fees).
• Amazon 2023 fee update (surcharge folded into base rates).
• Amazon 2026 fuel surcharge notice (3.5% from April 17, 2026; about $0.17 per unit on average).
• 2021 rate card (archive.org capture) (the June 2021 restructure, with packaging weight removed).
• 2017 rate card (archive.org capture) (the structure merge, with before/after tables).
• 2015 fee page (archive.org capture) (the $2.67 baseline, from Amazon’s own worked example).
• Current US fee schedule (live referral and FBA rates).
• US CPI-U series, BLS via FRED (the inflation comparison, 2015 average to May 2026).