Who keeps the shipping fee the buyer pays on Amazon? With FBA Amazon does, with FBM you do, minus a referral fee
When a buyer pays for shipping, your settlement shows it as a shipping credit, as if it were yours. Whether it really is yours depends on who ships.
We looked at the settlements of 11 seller accounts. When Amazon shipped (FBA), it took back the shipping the buyer paid, usually without VAT, and we saw no referral fee on it. When the seller shipped (FBM), the shipping fee stayed with the seller, but Amazon took a referral fee from it, the same way as from the item price: EUR 960.01 of EUR 7,050.80 in shipping (13.6%).
How we measured
We used the order lines of Amazon's settlements, by posted date between 1 September 2025 and 20 August 2026, from 11 seller accounts. The data does not cover the whole period for every account. For each order item (order and product) we added up the item price, VAT, the shipping charge and its VAT, promotions and Amazon's fees.
We counted an item as FBA when Amazon charged an FBA fulfillment fee on it: 4,823 items, 8 accounts. The rest are FBM: 789 items, 6 accounts. We left out 64 FBM items that had no referral fee line in the settlement, because the fee lines are missing there.
FBA: the buyer rarely pays for shipping, and when they do, it is not yours
| Shipping on the item | FBA items | Share |
|---|---|---|
| No shipping line | 3,918 | 81.2% |
| Free (the charge plus a promotion of the same size) | 551 | 11.4% |
| Paid by the buyer | 337 | 7.0% |
| Partly discounted | 17 | 0.4% |
Where the buyer paid, the settlement has two lines: the shipping credit as income, and a shipping chargeback as a deduction. The amount taken back is usually the shipping without VAT. In 331 of the 337 items it matches this to the cent: the shipping the buyer paid divided by the marketplace VAT rate (1.19 in Germany). Of the other 6, 2 were US items, where the chargeback was the shipping line without sales tax, and 4 were Irish items, where it was calculated with the German rate.
On euro items (324 items) buyers paid EUR 1,266.54 for shipping, and Amazon took back EUR 1,063.64. The difference, EUR 202.90, is roughly the VAT on shipping (EUR 203.47), and that is not income. The median shipping charge was EUR 3.99.
When the buyer's VAT rate differed from the marketplace rate, the seller got back a few cents more or less than the net shipping. An example from Germany: the buyer paid EUR 5.47 for shipping plus EUR 1.20 VAT, and the chargeback was EUR 5.61, because EUR 6.67 divided by 1.19 is EUR 5.61.
We saw no referral fee on shipping for FBA. Where we could compare with an item of the same product without shipping (232 items), in 188 the referral fee came out to the cent on the item price alone, and in none on the item price plus shipping.
FBM: the shipping fee is yours, but a referral fee comes off it
Of the 789 FBM items, the buyer paid for shipping on 731, and on 730 of those the settlement had a separate deduction on the shipping (ShippingHB). 18 items shipped free, 1 partly discounted, and 39 had no shipping line. Buyer-paid FBM shipping appeared on two accounts.
| Marketplace | Items | Shipping (incl. VAT) | Deducted from shipping |
|---|---|---|---|
| Germany | 321 | EUR 3,025.80 | EUR 418.49 |
| France | 329 | EUR 3,164.00 | EUR 423.19 |
| Spain | 46 | EUR 455.40 | EUR 61.94 |
| Italy | 25 | EUR 247.50 | EUR 33.25 |
| Belgium | 9 | EUR 158.10 | EUR 23.14 |
| Total | 730 | EUR 7,050.80 | EUR 960.01 |
The deduction was a percentage of the shipping including VAT: 13% on 516 items, 15% on 212, something else on two. On 625 items it was the same percentage (within half a percentage point) as the referral fee Amazon took from the item price on the same item. On the other 105 it took a lower percentage from shipping than from the item. Never the other way round.
A common case: EUR 9.90 shipping in Germany, of which EUR 1.58 is VAT. Amazon deducted EUR 1.29 or EUR 1.49 from it, which left EUR 6.83 to 7.03 for the carrier.
What this data does not tell you
How many buyers the shipping charge puts off. Nor which buyers pay for shipping on FBA (for example those without Prime): the settlement shows the charge, not the buyer. Buyer-paid FBM shipping appeared on two accounts. For a large catalogue that ships to many marketplaces, the picture may differ.
What to do with it
- On FBA, do not count the shipping the buyer pays as income. The chargeback takes the net part of the shipping credit, and what is left is roughly the VAT on shipping.
- On FBM, include the referral fee when you set your shipping charge. If the buyer pays for the carrier, the referral fee comes off the shipping too, usually at your product's rate. Of EUR 9.90 in Germany, EUR 6.83 to 7.03 is left.
- Putting shipping into the item price does not save you referral fees. On most items the shipping got the same referral percentage as the product. Where it differed, the separately charged shipping got the lower one, never the other way round.
- Open one order in your own settlement. Seller Central, Payments, Transactions: open an order where the buyer paid for shipping. On FBA you will see the chargeback next to the shipping credit, on FBM the deduction on shipping among the fees.