Aged inventory surcharge: definition, formula and 2026 rates

The aged inventory surcharge is what Amazon charges for FBA stock that stays too long. Many sellers still call it the long-term storage fee.

What is the aged inventory surcharge?

It is a monthly fee on FBA units that have been in Amazon's fulfillment network for 181 days or longer, charged on top of the regular monthly storage fee. Three mechanics decide what you pay:

• Snapshot on the 15th. Amazon checks inventory age on the 15th and usually posts the charge between the 18th and 22nd.
• First-in, first-out age. Each unit sold or removed anywhere in the network comes off your oldest stock, whichever physical unit shipped.
• Volume, with a floor. The fee is priced per cubic foot. Past 365 days, Amazon also works out a per-unit fee and bills the higher of the two.

How is the aged inventory surcharge calculated?

Cubic feet per unit = length × width × height (inches) ÷ 1,728

Surcharge = units × cubic feet per unit × tier rate, or units × per-unit rate in the two oldest tiers when that is higher.

US rates from January 16, 2026, applied to 500 units of a 12 × 10 × 4 inch product (0.278 cubic feet each, about 138.9 in total):

Unit age	Rate	Monthly surcharge, 500 units
181-210 days	$0.50 per cu ft*	$69.44
211-240 days	$1.00 per cu ft*	$138.89
241-270 days	$1.50 per cu ft*	$208.33
271-300 days	$5.45 per cu ft	$756.94
301-330 days	$5.70 per cu ft	$791.67
331-365 days	$5.90 per cu ft	$819.44
366-455 days	$6.90 per cu ft or $0.30 per unit, whichever is greater	$958.33
456 days or more	$7.90 per cu ft or $0.35 per unit, whichever is greater	$1,097.22

*Clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry and watches are excluded from these three tiers.

These rates come from Amazon's US help page. If you sell in other marketplaces, check each one's Seller Central fee page for its own schedule.

The per-unit floor matters for small items: an 8 × 6 × 0.5 inch shirt is about 0.014 cubic feet, so from day 366 the per-unit rate sets its bill: $0.30, then $0.35 from day 456.

Why does it matter for operations and growth?

Watch the 270-day line. The rate more than triples there, from $1.50 to $5.45 per cubic foot, and it repeats every month the units stay. A SKU you could have cleared with a modest discount at day 250 costs over three times as much per month by day 280.

The surcharge is also a symptom. Stock ages because it was bought faster than it sells, and the cash in those units is not funding the SKUs that do sell. Read it as a signal about forecasting and sell-through rate, not just a settlement line.

What mistakes make the surcharge bigger than it needs to be?

• Acting after the charge posts. Removal and disposal orders only keep units out of a snapshot if submitted by 11:59 p.m. PT on the 14th.
• Tracking age by shipment instead of FIFO. What matters is how many units will still sit past a tier boundary on the 15th after projected sales.
• Assuming apparel is exempt. Clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry and watches skip only the 181-270 day tiers.
• Leaving automated removal unconfigured or disabled. Amazon says it removes sellable units past 270 days anyway when you have not configured the setting or have turned it off, and without a return address they are donated, recycled or disposed of.
• Paying monthly for units that will never sell. From January 15, 2026, disposing of a standard-size unit with a shipping weight up to 0.5 lb costs $0.84 once, and special-handling items, which can include apparel and shoes, start at $3.12. The surcharge recurs.
• Only cleaning up. If the report grows every month, the gap is in replenishment, not removals.

How can Growth OS flag aged stock early?

Seller Central flags ASINs that will be subject to the surcharge within 60 days. Ecomsellertool Growth OS runs on your own accounts, and its inventory and reporting modules can be set up to look further ahead:

1. Pull the FBA Manage Inventory Health report through the SP-API, which lists units by age bucket and an estimated surcharge per tier.
2. Project each SKU's FIFO age to the next three snapshots and flag units about to cross 181, 271, 366 or 456 days.
3. Price each option against the surcharge so you can choose one: a price cut, an Outlet deal, a budget shift through inventory-aware ad spend, or a removal order submitted by the 14th.
4. Feed the same data into purchase planning, so reorders follow real days of cover.

The full playbook is on the ops gap page: how to avoid the aged inventory surcharge.

Where should you start?

Pull the Aged Inventory Surcharge report for your last three charges. If the total is rising, start with the free Quick Scan in the Ops Gap Diagnostic: it works from reports you upload, including an inventory age or storage fee report, and returns your top three Amazon operations gaps, each with a yearly dollar estimate.