It applies to units that have been in Amazon fulfillment centers for more than 181 days, charged monthly on top of regular storage, and it escalates the longer the stock sits. Because it compounds with age, the time to act is before a SKU crosses that 181-day line, not after.
How is the aged-inventory surcharge different from the long-term storage fee?
The aged-inventory surcharge replaced the older long-term storage fee. The old fee already had a roughly 180-day tier, but it was assessed only twice a year (on the 15th of February and August). The surcharge is charged every month instead, so the cost of aging stock compounds far faster than the old twice-yearly hits did. The principle is the same, a penalty for stock that does not move, but it now accrues monthly.
Andrew Erickson is the founder of Inventory Hero. He has spent years working with Amazon FBA sellers on demand forecasting, restock planning, and the cash flow side of running a private-label brand. Inventory Hero exists because every spreadsheet-based inventory system he tried eventually broke — usually right before Q4.
Keep inventory moving. Watch your inventory age buckets, and clear slow movers with a price promotion, a bundle, or a removal order before they cross 181 days. Once a unit ages in, every additional month adds the surcharge on top of storage, so acting early is almost always cheaper than waiting.
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The Amazon aged-inventory surcharge is a monthly fee on units that have sat in fulfillment centers too long, charged on top of regular storage, and in 2026 it applies once stock passes 181 days. The short version: it escalates the longer inventory sits, it replaced the old long-term storage fee and is now charged every month instead of twice a year, and you avoid it by clearing slow movers before they cross the 181-day line. Below is how it works, why it compounds, and how to keep stock from aging into it.
The aged-inventory surcharge is Amazon's penalty for inventory that does not sell. It is charged monthly, per unit, on stock that has been in fulfillment centers beyond 181 days, and it sits on top of the regular monthly storage fee, not instead of it.1 The longer a unit ages, the higher the surcharge, so a SKU that stalls keeps getting more expensive to hold the longer you wait. See the aged-inventory surcharge definition for the short form.
The point of the fee, from Amazon's side, is to free up warehouse space, so it is deliberately structured to make sitting on dead stock painful. From your side, it is the clearest signal that a SKU has become a liability rather than an asset.
The aged-inventory surcharge took over from the older long-term storage fee, which was assessed only twice a year. The key difference is frequency: the surcharge is charged every month instead, so aging stock now accrues a penalty far faster than it did under the old biannual fee. See what replaced the long-term storage fee for the full history of the change.
Because the surcharge is monthly and escalates with age, the cost of a slow mover is not a one-time hit, it grows. A unit that crosses 181 days pays the surcharge that month, more the next month as it ages further, and so on, all while still paying regular storage and tying up the cash you spent to buy it. This is why aged inventory is so corrosive to margin: the longer you wait hoping it will sell, the more it costs to have waited.
Avoiding the surcharge is the same discipline as good restock planning: do not send in more than you will sell, and act early on what stalls.
Watch your age buckets. The FBA inventory age report (in Seller Central under Reports, then Fulfillment, then Inventory Age) shows how close each SKU is to the 181-day line. Review it monthly and flag anything trending toward it.
Time it around the monthly assessment. Amazon snapshots your inventory once a month to decide what gets the surcharge, so clearing or removing a unit before that monthly assessment can save a whole month's charge. Acting a few days early instead of a few days late is free money.
Clear early, while options are cheap. A price promotion, a bundle with a faster mover, a multi-channel liquidation, or Amazon's own Liquidations program (a low recovery rate, but it clears the unit and avoids the removal fee) all cost less than paying an escalating surcharge for months and then removing the stock anyway.
Run the removal-versus-hold math. At some point a removal order (which carries its own per-unit fee, lower for standard size than oversize, so check the current rate) is cheaper than continuing to pay storage plus an escalating surcharge on stock that is not moving. Use the FBA storage fee calculator to model what another month of holding actually costs, and decide deliberately rather than letting it age by default.
Right-size the next order. The surcharge is usually a symptom of over-ordering. Forecast and reorder per SKU so the stock that comes in actually sells. See how to forecast Q4 inventory, since Q4 over-builds are a common source of January aged stock.
The aged-inventory surcharge is a monthly, escalating fee on FBA units past 181 days, stacked on top of regular storage, that replaced the older long-term storage fee and is charged every month rather than in two biannual hits. It compounds the longer stock sits, so the way to beat it is to keep inventory moving and clear slow movers before they cross the line. For the exact per-unit rates by age band, check Amazon's current fee schedule; for the full fee picture, see Amazon FBA fees 2026.