FBA Inbound Shortages: How to Claim Units Amazon Never Received

When you send an FBA shipment to Amazon, the fulfillment center can count fewer units than you shipped. A box may have gone missing with the carrier, units may have been mislabeled, or they may have been counted under another shipment. Amazon finds or pays for some units on its own; for the rest, you have to file a claim, and there is a deadline. This guide explains how to find the missing units, which documents to prepare and how to file, and ends with a case text you can paste into Seller Central.

The deadline depends on the marketplace

Under Amazon’s “Shipment to Amazon claims” policy, you can file once Seller Central shows the shipment as eligible for investigation, and you must file within a set time of the verified delivery date. That time differs by marketplace:

The table comes from Amazon’s own help page in each marketplace (26 October 2026). Plenty of articles still say “15 to 60 days from delivery”. That was the rule Amazon announced on its European seller forum in September 2024; the European and UK pages now say six months. Articles that say “nine months” are right only for the US, Canada and Japan.

The window does not open before the shipment closes. According to Amazon’s reconciliation page, a shipment can only become eligible for investigation once its status is Closed, and the eligibility date Seller Central shows is an estimate. For your own shipment, the date in Seller Central always wins. For a marketplace not listed here, read the policy page in your own Seller Central.

How to find the missing units

In Seller Central’s Shipments list, a shipment moves through In transit, Delivered, Checked in, Receiving and Closed. Amazon says reconciliation usually takes 2 to 30 days, sometimes up to 60. Shipments created after 1 February 2024 close automatically after 45 days (domestic) or 75 days (international).

On a closed shipment, click Track shipment and open the Contents tab. For each product you see the units expected and the units located; the difference is in the Discrepancy column. Before you file, check:

• How the units were located. Hover over the located number to see how the units were accounted for: standard receiving (Received), Amazon’s own reconciliation (Reconciled), paid for (Reimbursed), received on another of your shipments (“Received on shipment FBA…”) or received as a different item. The last two are label mix-ups: the units are not lost, they are in your stock under another record.
• Units already paid for. Amazon pays for units it accepts responsibility for; the amounts appear on the Transactions tab of the Payments report. Don’t claim a paid unit again.
• The product’s status. “Action required” marks a discrepancy that is eligible for research. If it reads “Investigation completed – shipment contents counted and confirmed”, Amazon physically counted the boxes and units on receipt: those units can no longer be claimed, and Amazon treats them as short-shipped. If you have information that helps locate them, contact Selling Partner Support.
• Your own plan. Amazon’s policy requires that you sent the exact items and quantities in your shipping plan. Compare the plan with what you actually shipped.

An example: 260 shipped, 251 received

A US shipment from VeraMargin’s demo store (made-up products): “Kitchen restock — September”, FBA18M5T1QRA, to the SBD1 fulfillment center. Delivered by FedEx by 14 September 2026 at the latest, closed on 25 September.

The nine units cost $159.60; if Amazon doesn’t pay, that comes off your profit. In the US the deadline is nine months after delivery, around 14 June 2027. A tool counting 60 days would show the same shipment as expired after 13 November 2026. Here the delivery date is known only as “at the latest”, so the real deadline may be a little earlier. The safest course is to file as soon as the shipment is eligible for investigation.

What to have ready

For a claim on missing units, Amazon asks for the following, and may ask for more:

• The Amazon shipment ID. It starts with FBA and is in your Shipping Queue.
• Proof of ownership. A supplier invoice, a receipt from another seller, or a signed packing slip if you are the manufacturer. It must show the purchase date, product names matching the missing items, and the quantity.
• Proof of delivery. For small-parcel shipments, an active tracking ID the carrier can confirm for each box. If you didn’t use an Amazon-partnered carrier and didn’t enter tracking when you created the shipment, you must enter it before the shipment becomes eligible. For LTL or FTL shipments, a proof of delivery showing the number of boxes and the total weight, stamped and signed at the fulfillment center; your carrier has a copy.

You can file only one claim per shipment; a second claim for the same shipment is declined. List every missing product in that one claim.

Filing the claim, step by step

1. In Shipments, find the shipment and click Track shipment.
2. In the shipment summary, open the Contents tab.
3. View discrepancies and request research. Every product marked “Action required” needs an option chosen from its drop-down menu.
4. Upload the invoice and the proof of delivery.
5. Paste the case text below as the additional information.
6. Preview, submit, and note the case ID.

A case text to copy

Replace the brackets with your own details and write dates as YYYY-MM-DD.

Subject: Units not received - inbound shipment [FBA shipment ID]

Hello,

Amazon closed FBA inbound shipment [FBA shipment ID] ("[shipment name]") with [total] units not received. Please research the shipment and locate the missing units, or reimburse them.

Shipment ID: [FBA shipment ID]
Destination fulfillment center: [FC code]
Delivered: [YYYY-MM-DD], carrier [carrier], tracking / PRO numbers [numbers]
Closed: [YYYY-MM-DD]

Units missing:
- SKU [SKU] / FNSKU [FNSKU]: shipped [n], received [n], missing [n]
- SKU [SKU] / FNSKU [FNSKU]: shipped [n], received [n], missing [n]

Attached: the supplier invoice showing the purchase date, product names and quantities, and the carrier's proof of delivery.

Thank you.

For the example shipment, the missing lines read “SKU DEMO-002: shipped 120, received 114, missing 6” and “SKU DEMO-006: shipped 60, received 57, missing 3”. List only units that are still open: leave out units Amazon has located, paid for or received on another shipment.

What Amazon pays

Under Amazon’s US and UK policy, for losses in shipments to Amazon, in the fulfillment center and before an order, Amazon pays the item’s sourcing cost: what you paid the manufacturer, wholesaler or reseller for it. Shipping, customs duties and similar costs are not included. You can enter your cost on the Manage Your Sourcing Cost page in Seller Central; if you don’t, Amazon uses its own estimate. If a unit it paid for is found and returned to your inventory, Amazon may reverse the payment.

If you disagree with a decision or the amount, Amazon’s October 2025 notice gives 90 days from the initial claim to ask for a re-evaluation.

In your profit

Until Amazon pays, the missing units are a cost you have already paid. If the claim is denied, you decide not to claim, or the window passes, that cost comes off your profit; if Amazon pays later, the payment comes in as income. It is hard to see from the payout: the why your Amazon payout isn’t your profit guide explains why.

Sources

Last checked: 26 October 2026.

• Amazon, “FBA inventory reimbursement policy: Shipment to Amazon claims”: US, UK, Australia (the other marketplaces: the same page on their own domain)
• Amazon, FBA inventory reimbursement policy: US (sourcing cost), Brazil, Turkey, United Arab Emirates
• Amazon: Reconcile your shipment (reconciliation, statuses, automatic closing)
• Amazon Seller Forums: update to FBA reimbursement claim windows (October 2025)
• Example shipment: VeraMargin’s demo store (made-up products), the app’s Shipments screen.