The published sequence: deal early-bird discount deadlines August 5 and September 5; Prime Big Deal Days inventory arrivals September 2 to 16 and deal submissions closing September 8; Black Friday and Cyber Monday arrivals October 14 to 28 and deal submissions closing October 20; peak fulfillment fees October 15 through January 14; Black Friday November 27 and Cyber Monday November 30.
When do Amazon's peak fulfillment fees start in 2026?
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.
Holiday peak fulfillment fees run October 15, 2026 through January 14, 2027 for FBA, Remote Fulfillment with FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment, and Buy with Prime. Amazon says the average per-unit increase over non-peak rates matches last year's, and peak rates are already visible in the Revenue Calculator.
How much does a Lightning Deal cost during Q4 2026?
Lightning Deals and Best Deals for the Q4 2026 events cost $100 per deal plus 1.5% of the sales the deal generates, capped at $5,000 per deal. Amazon offers $50 off the upfront fee if you schedule by August 5 for Prime Big Deal Days or September 5 for Black Friday Week and Cyber Monday.
How much inventory does Amazon recommend before a Q4 deal?
Amazon's playbook recommends having 4 to 6 weeks of inventory available before your deal event to avoid the low-inventory-level fee, then maintaining about 28 days of cover for post-deal sales. New ASINs without recommendations should also target at least 28 days of cover.
Amazon has published its Q4 2026 peak readiness playbook, and it is unusually concrete: hard arrival dates for both Q4 events, a peak fee window of October 15, 2026 through January 14, 2027, deal pricing with early-bird discounts, and a warning that capacity limits will run tighter in October and November.1 This is Amazon telling you its plan for peak. Here is every date that matters, in order, and what each one means for your inventory and margin decisions.
The inbound arrival dates deserve their own deep-dive, including how they have shifted since 2022, and we cover that in Amazon's FBA holiday cutoff dates; the full-year view of every seller date sits in the 2026 Amazon seller calendar. The operational takeaway here: Amazon says its fulfillment centers focus on receiving in September and October, then pivot to outbound orders in November and December, with limited delivery windows and potentially lower capacity limits in October and November during the shift.1
From October 15 to January 14, every unit you fulfill through FBA, Remote Fulfillment with FBA, Multi-Channel Fulfillment, or Buy with Prime pays a holiday peak fulfillment fee on top of the standard rate, with the fuel and logistics surcharge applying as well. Amazon states the average per-unit increase over non-peak rates is the same as last year's.1
Amazon has not published the increase as a single headline number, so do not guess at the impact, look it up: peak rates for your exact SKUs are already live in Amazon's Revenue Calculator and the Fee and Economics Preview Report, and that per-SKU lookup is the only version of the number that matters for your margin. Between the per-unit peak fee and Q4 storage rates that run nearly triple off-peak, the margin math for October through December is genuinely different from the rest of the year. Reprice or re-margin your Q4 promotions with peak fees included, not the September fee table, and check the blended picture in our FBA profit calculator.
The fee window also has a planning corollary sellers miss: it ends January 14, not December 31. Units you liquidate in early January still pay peak fulfillment fees, which strengthens the case for sizing Q4 inventory to sell through by year-end.
All the deal types, their costs, and their deadlines from the playbook:1
Deal type
Cost
Key rules
Submissions close
Best Deal
$100 + 1.5% of sales (cap $5,000)
Min 15% off reference price; at or below lowest price in 60 days; 30%+ discounts get extra merchandising
Sept 8 (PBDD), Oct 20 (BFCM)
Lightning Deal
$100 + 1.5% of sales (cap $5,000)
Min 20% off; 12-hour run during event days
Sept 8 (PBDD), Oct 20 (BFCM)
Prime Exclusive Discount
$100 per campaign + 1.5% of sales (cap $5,000)
Min 15% off; Prime members only
Open since July 20
Coupon
$5 + 2.5% of sales (cap $2,000)
Min 5% discount
Opens with event announcement
Worked example of what a deal actually costs: a Best Deal that moves 400 units at a $25 deal price generates $10,000 in deal sales, so the fee is $100 + (1.5% x $10,000) = $250, well under the $5,000 cap. Book it by September 5 and the early-bird discount cuts the upfront $100 to $50, bringing the total to $200.
Three fine-print items that change behavior:
The early-bird discount is real money if you run multiple deals. $50 off per Best Deal or Lightning Deal scheduled by August 5 (PBDD) or September 5 (BFCM).
Deal fees are charged up front whether or not you sell, unless you or Amazon cancel the deal before its scheduled start time. That makes the cancel-before-start window your only escape hatch: if inventory looks shaky as the event approaches, cancel early rather than eating a fee on a deal that will run out of stock.
PBDD deal prices are excluded from the 30- and 60-day lookback windows for BFCM pricing, so running an October deal does not wreck your required Black Friday price. This removes the classic reason to skip the October event.
Amazon's own numbers: 4 to 6 weeks of cover before the event, then 28 days of cover maintained after it, and at least 28 days for new ASINs without recommendations.1 The pre-event floor exists partly to keep you clear of the low-inventory-level fee, which would stack on top of peak fees at the worst possible time; our low-inventory-level fee guide covers how that fee is triggered.
Whether 4 to 6 weeks of your cover is enough depends entirely on the velocity you compute it from. A deal week can run at several times baseline velocity, so run the cover math on deal-adjusted velocity, not the trailing average. If your SKU is seasonal on top of the deal spike, and most Q4 deal SKUs are, apply the seasonal index first, the method in the 15% seasonality test. Amazon's demand forecast tool (up to 40 weeks out, factoring active deals and seasonal patterns) is a useful second opinion next to your own Q4 forecast.
Capacity Monitor shows your current limits plus estimates for the next two months, which is how you see the October squeeze coming instead of discovering it.
Capacity Manager lets you bid a reservation fee for extra fulfillment center space, with no upfront payment, aimed at products that sell through in under four weeks. Performance credits from the resulting sales can offset up to 100% of the fee, but treat full offset as the best case, not the plan: if the extra units sell slower than expected, you pay the difference.
AWD is the release valve Amazon keeps pointing at: no peak-season surcharge on AWD storage, no inbound placement fees on AWD-to-FBA replenishment, and inventory auto-replenished from AWD to FBA is not subject to FBA capacity limits during peak. Amazon suggests moving anything beyond 4 to 6 months of FBA cover there.
That last exemption is the strategic one. The pattern that uses it well: first FBA wave in before the October cutoff, bulk stock at AWD or a 3PL, then replenish FBA continuously through November from the buffer rather than from new inbound. How that compares to a third-party warehouse is covered in AWD vs 3PL, and the wider limit system in FBA capacity limits and the restock limits glossary entry.
Working the playbook backward from here, in early August:
Schedule PBDD deals before August 5 to bank the $50 discounts, and BFCM deals before September 5.
Confirm your Q4 POs are placed. For ocean-sourced goods (roughly 6 weeks of production plus 4 to 5 weeks of transit and buffer), production starting now lands around the October 28 optimized-split tier; the October 21 minimal-split date is already out of reach for most new ocean orders. If your PO is not in yet, place it this week and plan on optimized splits.
Pull peak rates for your top SKUs from the Revenue Calculator and rerun Q4 margins with the October 15 fee window and peak storage included.
Check Capacity Monitor's October and November estimates and decide now whether AWD, a Capacity Manager bid, or both cover the gap.
List new Q4 selection now, so search indexing and early reviews accumulate before the events.
Amazon's Q4 2026 peak readiness playbook compresses the season into a handful of real deadlines: deals by August 5 and September 5 for the discounts, inventory in by September 16 and October 21 to 28, peak fees from October 15 to January 14, and submissions closed by September 8 and October 20. Put those on your calendar this week, then work each one backward into a PO date, a freight booking, and a deal plan. The sellers who lose Q4 usually lose it in August.
Amazon Seller Central, "Q4 2026 peak readiness playbook" (sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G4QH4XCRWUXRJBLY), accessed August 2026. Seller Central login required. All dates, fee windows, deal costs, and capacity guidance in this article are from that page; confirm current values there before acting, as Amazon can revise them. ↩↩2↩3↩4↩5↩6