Amazon customer refunds: what Amazon keeps when you give the money back
When a buyer gets their money back, Amazon takes the product price back from you in the settlement and returns the referral fee. But not all of it: it keeps part of the referral fee, and it returns nothing of the FBA fee. So a refund costs money even if the product comes back in perfect condition.
This article is about money returned to the buyer. When Amazon pays you for a unit it lost or damaged is a different topic, covered in our article on FBA reimbursements.
We looked at 185 customer refunds at 9 sellers. In all 140 refunds that included a referral fee refund, Amazon kept 20% of it, up to EUR 5. Together with the FBA fee, an FBA refund cost EUR 4.84 on average, 19.4% of the refunded net price.
The data
We used the refund lines in the settlements and matched them to the original sale by order number and product. The 185 refunds here are the ones where the match worked. Posted dates fall between 27 December 2024 and 22 September 2026, all in euros.
| Count | |
|---|---|
| order items sold (9 sellers) | 6,226 |
| customer refunds | 185 (3.0%) |
| full product price refunded | 180 |
| partial or shipping only | 5 |
Refund rates differed a lot between sellers: among the seven sellers with at least 100 items sold, from 1.5% to 7.4%.
What Amazon keeps from the referral fee
When you sell, Amazon deducts a referral fee. When you refund, it gives that back, but keeps part of it as a refund administration fee.
140 refunds included a referral fee refund. Amazon returned EUR 638.82 of referral fees (including the referral fee on the shipping charge) and kept EUR 120.98. In all 140 cases, the amount kept was exactly 20% of the refunded referral fee rounded to the cent, up to EUR 5 (because of the 140 roundings, the total is 6 cents less than a calculation from the totals gives). Two refunds hit the EUR 5 cap, at referral fees of EUR 45.40 and EUR 38.22.
Per refund, that was EUR 0.63 at the median and EUR 0.86 on average. Small, but not zero in any of the 140.
Nothing comes back from the FBA fee
On FBA orders, the fulfillment fee is deducted when the order ships. It is not returned on a refund: the original sales behind 153 FBA refunds carried EUR 635.95 of FBA fees, and the refund lines returned EUR 0 of it. The median was EUR 3.42 per refund.
Together: what one refund costs
For 118 FBA refunds (7 sellers) we could measure both parts.
| Amount | |
|---|---|
| FBA fee lost | EUR 490.10 |
| referral fee kept by Amazon | EUR 81.35 |
| total | EUR 571.45 |
| per refund, average | EUR 4.84 |
| per refund, median | EUR 4.05 |
| lowest and highest | EUR 2.72 and EUR 17.26 |
| net product price refunded | EUR 2,943.52 |
| cost relative to that | 19.4% |
86% of the cost is the FBA fee. VAT goes back to the buyer together with the price; it is not a cost.
The product itself is not included. If it does not come back, or comes back unsellable, that is a separate loss. We measured what happens to returned units in our article on return reasons and dispositions.
The money does not wait for the product
Of 185 refunds, 51 were posted even before the shipment was posted, and another 51 no more than one day after it. 37 came within 2-7 days, 38 within 8-30 days and 8 later. So the money often goes back to the buyer before the product could have come back. Whether it did come back has to be checked separately.
What to do
- Put refunds into your margin. For us, an FBA refund cost EUR 4-5 on top of the product. On a cheap product that is a much larger share; we worked through the numbers in our article on advertising cheap products.
- Track the refund rate per product. We measured 1.5% to 7.4% per seller. If one product stands out, look at its return reasons.
- Check whether the product came back. The refund does not wait for it. If the buyer was refunded and the unit never returned, Amazon owes you for it; see our article on FBA reimbursements.
Why the numbers are not exact
- For 44 refunds, neither the sale nor the refund carried a referral fee line in our data. We left them out of the referral fee calculation.
- For another 10 refunds we could not find the original sale; they are not among the 185, and 8 refunds in US dollars are not included.
- 32 of the 185 original sales carried no FBA fee (22 of the 140 with a referral fee refund). For these, the cost is only the referral fee part.
- The data come from 9 sellers, and their product ranges do not tell you what refund rate to expect in general.
If you count a refund as zero because the product came back, the count is wrong: on an FBA order, the FBA fee and part of the referral fee are gone either way.