Aged Inventory Surcharge

Why the aged inventory surcharge matters for an FBA seller

This is one of the quietest margin leaks in an FBA P&L. The surcharge is charged on top of regular storage and gets steeper the longer units age, so a slow SKU can quietly turn unprofitable while it just sits there.

It compounds with your IPI. The same aged units that trigger the surcharge also inflate your excess-inventory ratio, so stale stock costs you twice: a direct fee and a lower score that can tighten your storage limits.

What you actually pay (2026 rates, per cubic foot, per month)

Amazon assesses the aged inventory surcharge on the 15th of each month and charges it between the 18th and 22nd, in addition to the regular monthly storage fee. The 2026 schedule is published on Amazon Seller Central at sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G200684750. Clothing, shoes, bags, jewelry, and watches are excluded.

Days 181 to 210: $0.50 per cubic foot. Days 211 to 240: $1.00 per cubic foot. Days 241 to 270: $1.50 per cubic foot. Days 271 to 300: $5.45 per cubic foot. Days 301 to 330: $5.70 per cubic foot. Days 331 to 365: $5.90 per cubic foot. 12 to 15 months: $6.90 per cubic foot or $0.30 per unit, whichever is greater. 15+ months: $7.90 per cubic foot or $0.35 per unit, whichever is greater.

The cliff at day 271 is the one to circle. Crossing it raises the per-cubic-foot surcharge by roughly 3.6x in a single month. That is the bracket where slow movers stop being a nuisance and start eating real margin.

Worked examples: 1,000 units sitting in the 271 to 300 day bucket

All three of these are standard-size SKUs (under 18 x 14 x 8 inches), so they share the same Jan to Sep base storage rate of $0.78 per cubic foot, per Amazon's published 2026 schedule at sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/GJ9NNG7RK4TU6E3Z. Numbers below use approximate packaged dimensions; your actual SKU dimensions on Seller Central are what Amazon bills against.

Small bottle (think a 2.5 x 2.5 x 4.5 inch supplement bottle, about 0.016 cubic feet packaged): 1,000 units occupy roughly 16 cubic feet. Regular monthly storage at 16 x $0.78 = $12.48. Aged surcharge at 16 x $5.45 = $87.20. Total monthly hit while those units sit: about $99.68 on top of any referral or fulfillment fees.

Tissue-box-size product (9 x 4.5 x 4 inches, about 0.094 cubic feet): 1,000 units occupy roughly 94 cubic feet. Regular monthly storage at 94 x $0.78 = $73.32. Aged surcharge at 94 x $5.45 = $512.30. Total monthly hit: about $585.62.

Shoebox-size product (13 x 9 x 5 inches, about 0.34 cubic feet): 1,000 units occupy roughly 340 cubic feet. Regular monthly storage at 340 x $0.78 = $265.20. Aged surcharge at 340 x $5.45 = $1,853.00. Total monthly hit: about $2,118.20.

Same age bucket, same unit count, an order-of-magnitude difference in the bill. That is the practical lesson: surcharge exposure is dominated by cubic footprint, so big, slow-moving SKUs are where this fee actually hurts. A 1,000-unit shoebox-size SKU that crosses day 271 in the off-peak months is a four-figure monthly storage line item all on its own.

How it stacks with other Amazon storage charges

The aged inventory surcharge is one of three storage-side fees that compound. First is the base monthly storage fee already shown above: $0.78 per cubic foot (Jan to Sep) and $2.40 per cubic foot (Oct to Dec) for standard size, with oversize at $0.56 (Jan to Sep) and $1.40 (Oct to Dec) per cubic foot. Peak season alone roughly triples your storage bill before any aging surcharge applies.

Second is the storage utilization surcharge, which Amazon layers on top of the base monthly storage rate when your inventory-to-sales ratio is high. For 2026 it adds between $0 and $1.88 per cubic foot for standard size, and $0 to $1.26 per cubic foot for oversize (see Amazon's 2026 fee summary at sellercentral.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/external/G201411300). A shoebox-size SKU sitting at the worst utilization band in Q4 can therefore be paying $2.40 base + $1.88 utilization + $5.45 aged = $9.73 per cubic foot per month, or roughly $3,308 on the same 1,000-unit example.

Third is the removal or disposal fee, which is what you pay to escape the surcharge entirely. Amazon publishes per-unit removal and disposal rates by size tier (typically a few cents to about a dollar per unit, depending on size and service) at sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/external/G200280650. For an aging shoebox-size SKU, paying roughly $1 per unit to remove 1,000 units (about $1,000 one time) often beats paying $2,118 per month to keep watching it age. Run the comparison before each surcharge cycle and remove the units when the math flips.

How the aged inventory surcharge connects to your restock decisions

Avoiding the surcharge starts at the buy. Ordering more units than your sell-through can clear before the age thresholds is what creates the exposure in the first place. Right-sizing order quantity to real velocity is the primary defense.

For inventory that is already aging, the move is to act before the next threshold: run a promotion, bundle, lower price, or create a removal order while the math still favors action. Watching projected age buckets against the thresholds turns this from a surprise charge into a planned decision.