How long do I have to file an FBA reimbursement claim?

For inventory lost or damaged inside a fulfillment center, typically 60 days from the date Amazon reported it lost or damaged — confirm your marketplace's policy in Seller Central. For customer returns, between 60 and 120 days after the refund or replacement. For removal orders lost in transit, 15 to 75 days from the removal order creation date. These are Amazon.com's windows, in force since October 23, 2024 (before that the window was 18 months); other marketplaces publish their own policy page.

Does Amazon reimburse lost inventory automatically?

Partly. Since November 2024 Amazon says it proactively reimburses items it reports as lost in a fulfillment center. Damaged units, units received short on inbound shipments, returns that were refunded but never came back, and disposed or misgraded units are still on you to find and claim.

How much does Amazon pay per reimbursed unit now?

Since March 31, 2025, inventory lost or damaged before a customer order is reimbursed at your manufacturing cost, not the sale price. You can enter your own sourcing cost in Seller Central under Manage Your Sourcing Cost; if you do not, Amazon estimates it, and its estimate is often lower than yours.

What is a realistic amount of unclaimed reimbursements?

Industry estimates from reimbursement services put recoverable claims at roughly 1 to 3 percent of annual FBA revenue. That is an estimate, not a promise; the only real number is the one in your own inventory ledger and financial events.

Can a tool file the claims for me?

A tool can read your ledger, match adjustments to reimbursements, and prepare the claim text. Filing still happens in your Seller Central account, by you or someone you authorize. Be cautious of anything that promises fully automatic filing inside Seller Central.

Amazon FBA Reimbursements: The 60-Day Window Explained (2026)

Last updated: September 2026

TL;DR: Amazon.com cut the claim window for most FBA reimbursements from 18 months to typically 60 days on October 23, 2024 (confirm your marketplace's policy in Seller Central), and since March 31, 2025 it reimburses pre-order losses at your manufacturing cost instead of the sale price. Money you do not spot within roughly two months may no longer be claimable. The fix is not a bigger annual audit; it is a small weekly check of your inventory ledger against your reimbursements report.

What changed, exactly

Two announcements in Seller Central rewrote the reimbursement game for FBA sellers on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and every other marketplace:

October 23, 2024: claim windows (Amazon.com policy — confirm your marketplace's policy in Seller Central). Lost or damaged in a fulfillment center: file within typically 60 days of Amazon reporting the event. Customer returns: file between 60 and 120 days after the refund or replacement. Removal orders lost in transit: 15 to 75 days from the removal order creation date; other removal claims, 60 days after delivery back to you. Shipment-to-Amazon (inbound) claims kept their own, separate window.
November 1, 2024: automatic reimbursement for FC-lost units. Amazon now pays out as soon as a fulfillment center reports a unit lost. Helpful, but it covers one loss type out of six.
March 31, 2025: manufacturing cost. Inventory lost or damaged before a customer order is reimbursed at your sourcing cost, excluding shipping, duties and handling. Losses after an order are still reimbursed at the order's sale price minus fees. Amazon estimates your cost unless you enter it under Manage Your Sourcing Cost in the Inventory Defect and Reimbursement portal.

Why the old habit now loses money

Most sellers, and most reimbursement services, worked in annual or quarterly sweeps: pull 18 months of ledger, find every discrepancy, file in bulk. Under a window of typically 60 days that sweep finds discrepancies that are already outside it. A Q1 audit run in April is unlikely to recover a January damage. The unit of work has to shrink from "audit the year" to "check the last 60 days, every week."

The six loss types, and which ones you still have to find yourself

Lost in fulfillment center. Now mostly automatic. Still verify the reimbursement actually posted and the quantity matches.
Damaged in fulfillment center. Not automatic. Appears in the inventory ledger as a damaged adjustment; you claim it.
Inbound shipment received short. Amazon checks in fewer units than you shipped. Separate claim path, separate window, and the one most sellers never reconcile.
Customer refunded, unit never returned. Amazon refunds the buyer; if the unit does not arrive back within about 45 days, you are owed the unit. Claimable in the 60 to 120 day slot.
Returned unit misgraded or disposed. A sellable return marked unsellable, or destroyed without reimbursement.
Removal order lost in transit. Units you asked Amazon to send back that never arrived.

How to check what you are owed in 20 minutes

Download the Inventory Ledger report (Reports, Fulfillment, Inventory Ledger) for the last 60 days, detailed view.
Filter event types to Damaged, Lost, Disposed and Adjustments. Note SKU, date and quantity for each negative event that is not paired with a "found" or a reimbursement on a nearby date. Same-day plus and minus on one SKU is usually a warehouse transfer, not a loss.
Open the Reimbursements report for the same window and match by SKU and date. Anything unmatched and inside its window is a claim.
For returns, open the FBA customer returns report, find refunds older than 60 days with no returned unit, and check they were reimbursed.
File each claim in Seller Central under FBA inventory reimbursements. Keep the ledger row IDs; Amazon asks for them.

Do this weekly and nothing expires. Do it once a year and, under the current policy, most of it already has.

What a tool can honestly do here

Reading the ledger, matching it against reimbursements, ignoring transfers and pairing refunds with returns is exactly the kind of tedious reconciliation software should own. Limonene (limonene.app), an AI store manager for Amazon sellers, runs that match continuously from your own SP-API data, shows what is owed per SKU in your marketplace currency, and prepares the claim text with the ledger references Amazon asks for. Filing stays inside your Seller Central account, and you keep 100 percent of what you recover. It works on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de and 17 more marketplaces. If you want a number before you connect anything, the free estimator gives an industry-average range from your monthly revenue, and the free ledger check reads your own Inventory Ledger export, entirely in your browser, and shows exactly which units are still unclaimed.

One honesty note: the reimbursement totals Limonene shows publicly today come from its first connected stores, which sell on Amazon.eg. Your number will come from your ledger, not from an average.

Checklist for the next 60 days

Enter your sourcing cost per SKU in Manage Your Sourcing Cost so pre-order losses are paid at your cost, not Amazon's estimate.
Put a weekly 20-minute ledger check on the calendar, or connect a tool that does it.
Reconcile every inbound shipment within a week of it closing.
Review refunds older than 60 days for missing returns.
Keep the claim references; a rejected claim can be appealed with the ledger rows.

Last updated: September 2026. Windows and payout rules are Amazon's and change; the Seller Central FBA inventory reimbursement policy page is the final word. Not affiliated with Amazon.com, Inc.