What Is Amazon's 24-Month FBA Inventory Abandonment Policy?
Amazon has quietly rolled out a significant change to its FBA storage rules. Any inventory sitting in an Amazon fulfillment center for more than 24 consecutive months is now classified as "abandoned." Once flagged, those units are placed on a removal schedule. If you do nothing, Amazon will either return the inventory to your registered address, or, if no valid return address is on file, liquidate, donate, or dispose of the units entirely.
This policy targets long-tail product sellers most directly. Books, collectibles, niche accessories, and seasonal goods that turn slowly are the first categories to hit the 24-month threshold. Even sellers with excellent storage utilization scores, the top-tier rating Amazon uses to measure how efficiently you use fulfillment space, are not exempt. The policy applies based purely on the age of each ASIN's inventory, not your overall seller health.
For sellers who depend on slow-moving SKUs to fill out a catalog, this notice can feel like a gut punch. You may have purchased that inventory at full cost, paid months of storage fees, and now face the possibility of losing the stock altogether.
"Amazon's fulfillment center policies evolve faster than most sellers anticipate. The 24-month threshold is a hard cutoff, and the clock does not pause while you consider your options. The sellers who respond strategically in the first 72 hours after receiving a removal notice consistently preserve more inventory and profit than those who wait." — Delphine Marchetti, Senior Marketplace Strategist, Farlington Commerce Group
For related step-by-step guidance, see complete guide to Amazon FBA.
Why Amazon Is Making This Change
Amazon frames this policy as a fulfillment health initiative. Fulfillment centers are designed to store inventory close to customers and enable fast, reliable delivery. When slow-moving units sit untouched for two years, they occupy shelf space that could be used by inventory with higher velocity. This directly limits other sellers from sending in new stock and creates congestion that affects the entire network.
For related step-by-step guidance, see AWD shipment delivered but not.
From a practical standpoint, Amazon is also responding to its own capacity pressures. The Amazon FBA inventory management policy page outlines how storage utilization surcharges are calculated and why healthy inventory levels matter for both Amazon's network and your bottom line. Long-dwell inventory costs Amazon real operational dollars, and the new 24-month cap is a firm mechanism to reclaim that capacity.
Who Gets Hit Hardest?
The sellers most at risk include:
- Book and media sellers with extensive long-tail catalogs where individual titles may sell once a quarter or less.
- Seasonal goods sellers who send inventory in for a peak period and fail to remove unsold units afterward.
- Niche accessory sellers in categories with thin demand where a single listing can sit dormant for months.
- New sellers who over-stocked on launch and have not run clearance promotions to reduce aged units.
For related step-by-step guidance, see Amazon FBA missing inventory.
If you received the email Amazon is sending to affected accounts, the removal date of September 25, 2025 is not a suggestion. Units scheduled for removal will leave your FBA account on or after that date regardless of your storage utilization score.
For context on how Amazon's broader account health policies interact with inventory compliance, the FBA long-term storage fee guide on this site walks through the full cost structure and what triggers surcharges before a removal notice ever arrives.
Your Options Before the Removal Date
Amazon's notice lists four distinct paths you can take. Understanding the tradeoffs of each is critical before you decide.
Option 1: Sell through by discounting and running promotions. Lowering prices and creating coupons or Lightning Deals can accelerate sell-through before the deadline. This is the highest-value outcome if your margins allow it. Price matching competitors or going below cost briefly is painful but recoverable.
Option 2: Liquidate eligible units in bulk. Amazon's own liquidation program lets you move inventory at a fraction of retail value. You recover some cash, avoid disposal fees, and clear your storage. Expect to receive between 5 and 10 percent of average selling price through liquidation.
For related step-by-step guidance, see Amazon FBA return abuse.
Option 3: Create manual removal orders. You can request that Amazon return specific units to your address. This costs a per-unit removal fee, typically $0.50 to $1.00 depending on unit size, but you retain ownership of the inventory and can sell it through other channels, including your own website or other marketplaces.
Option 4: Opt in to automated fulfillable inventory removals. This setting tells Amazon to automatically return or dispose of slow-moving units going forward, before they hit policy thresholds. It is a preventive measure for the future rather than a solution for inventory already flagged.
For sellers facing account-level compliance notices alongside this removal issue, the account deactivation knowledge base provides additional context on how Amazon's policy enforcement escalates.
How to Respond to an Amazon 24-Month Inventory Removal Notice
Moving quickly is essential. Complete the steps below in order.
- Log into Seller Central and go to Inventory, then Manage Inventory. Filter by date range to identify every ASIN with inventory older than 18 months so you can see the full scope of the problem before the September 25 deadline.
- Check your current return address in your account settings under Fulfillment by Amazon, then Removal Settings. If you do not have a valid return address on file and Amazon removes your inventory, units may be disposed of rather than returned. Add or confirm your address immediately.
- Run a velocity and margin analysis on each flagged ASIN. For each unit, calculate whether the expected sale price minus remaining storage fees, removal fees, and cost of goods still produces a positive margin. Units with positive margin potential are sell-through candidates. Units underwater on margin are liquidation or removal candidates.
- Create separate removal or liquidation orders for each category of SKU based on your analysis. Use Amazon's bulk removal tool in Seller Central to generate orders for multiple ASINs at once rather than processing them one at a time.
- Set up automated removal settings going forward. In Fulfillment by Amazon settings, enable the automated removal option and configure the minimum inventory age threshold that works for your business. This prevents the same problem from recurring in 2026 and beyond.
- Review your inbound shipment strategy. After the removal is resolved, audit your reorder quantities to confirm you are not sending more units than you can reasonably sell in 12 to 18 months. The FBA inventory planning knowledge base covers demand forecasting methods suited to long-tail sellers.
- Monitor your storage utilization score weekly for the 60 days following the removal. After aged units leave your account, your score may improve significantly, which can expand your inbound shipping limits.