Every US category's referral rate, including the tiered ones that trip sellers up. Search or filter, see the exact rate and how it's calculated, then jump straight to the calculator with that category preloaded.
2026 status: Amazon froze referral fee percentages for both 2025 and 2026 — rates below are unchanged since January 2024. Only FBA fulfillment fees rose (about $0.08/unit average) from January 15, 2026. A $0.30 per-unit minimum applies to most categories.
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Referral rate
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How to read this table
The referral fee is Amazon's commission on every sale — charged on the full transaction value (item price plus any shipping or gift-wrap you charge), and applied to FBA and FBM sellers alike. Most categories are a flat 15%, but several are tiered: the rate changes at price breakpoints. Those are the ones where sellers most often miscalculate, because they apply a single rate to the whole price instead of the tier structure.
Tiered categories to watch
Clothing & Accessories: 5% at/under $15, 10% from $15.01–$20, 17% above $20. A $14.99 shirt pays 5%; a $15.01 shirt pays 10% — the breakpoint matters.
Grocery & Gourmet: 8% under $15, 15% at/above $15.
Beauty & Personal Care: 8% at/under $10, 15% above.
Jewelry: 20% up to $250, then just 5% on the portion above $250.
The $0.30 minimum
Most categories carry a $0.30 minimum per unit. On a $2 accessory at 15%, the math says $0.30 — and the minimum holds it there. On anything sub-$4 it's the minimum, not the percentage, that sets your fee.
Pick the right category
If your product could list in more than one category, the fee can differ by several points. Selling consumer electronics (8%) instead of a 15% catch-all on the same item changes your margin materially. Verify your browse node in Seller Central — Amazon can also reclassify listings during catalogue updates, so re-check your top SKUs each quarter.
Are referral fees the same for FBA and FBM?
Yes. The referral fee is identical whether Amazon fulfills (FBA) or you ship yourself (FBM). The difference is the fulfillment cost: FBA charges a per-unit fulfillment fee, while FBM sellers carry their own shipping and lose the Prime badge. Use the FBA vs FBM calculator to see which wins for your product.
Does the referral fee include payment processing?
Yes — unlike eBay or Etsy, Amazon's referral fee already includes payment processing. There's no separate 2.9% + $0.30 card fee on top, which makes Amazon's effective rate lower than the headline percentage suggests when comparing platforms.
Can I negotiate or reduce referral fees?
No. Referral fees are non-negotiable and uniform for all sellers — there are no volume discounts. The only levers are choosing a lower-fee category (where your product legitimately fits) or hitting a price tier that qualifies for a reduced rate.
The fees this table doesn't show
Referral rates are frozen, but 2026 added pressure elsewhere: Amazon ended US prep/labeling on January 1, 2026 (non-compliant inbound now runs roughly $0.32–$5.72 per unit), and since March 10, 2025 it reimburses lost or damaged stock at manufacturing cost, not retail. The referral fee is the visible cut; these are the ones that quietly erode margin. See what Amazon owes you back →
How the referral fee actually computes — worked examples
The fee applies to the full transaction value: item price plus any shipping or gift-wrap charge you collect. That means a $20 item with $5 seller-charged shipping is assessed on $25, not $20 — the most common reason a real settlement doesn't match a seller's spreadsheet.
The second reason is tier mechanics, because Amazon uses two different tier types and they don't behave the same way (all figures below are illustrative, using this table's published structures):
Whole-price tiers — the rate that matches your price applies to the entire amount. Clothing & Accessories: a $19.99 item sits in the 10% band and pays about $2.00; at $20.01 the whole price moves to 17% and pays about $3.40. Crossing the breakpoint by two cents raised the fee by roughly $1.40 — which is why apparel sellers price to the boundary.
Portion tiers — each slice of the price pays its own rate. Jewelry: on a $300 item, the first $250 pays 20% ($50) and only the portion above pays 5% ($2.50) — about $52.50 total, not 20% of $300 ($60). Electronics Accessories works the same way in reverse: 15% up to $100, then 8% only on the portion above. Reading a portion tier as a whole-price tier overstates your fee; the reverse understates it. The table's detail line for each category tells you which type you're in.
Pricing around a breakpoint: the $15.01 problem
Tiered categories create margin cliffs where a higher price nets you less. In Clothing, moving a shirt from $14.99 (5% band) to $15.01 (10% band) adds two cents of revenue but roughly 75 cents of fee — net proceeds fall. The practical discipline for tiered categories: when you set or test prices, check which side of the breakpoint you land on, and if you're within about 5% above a boundary, model whether pricing down to the boundary nets more. This is exactly the calculation the fee calculator runs when you preload a category from this table.
The $0.30 per-unit minimum creates the same cliff at the bottom of the market: under about $4 retail (well under $2 in the 8% categories), the minimum — not the percentage — is your real rate, and it regresses as price falls: $0.30 on a $2 item is an effective 15% even in a "low-fee" category. Low-price, high-velocity SKUs should be margined on the minimum, not the headline rate.
Where the referral fee sits in your full fee stack
The referral fee is the only charge in the stack that scales purely with price and applies to every seller identically — FBA or FBM, new or established, any volume. Everything else varies: fulfillment fees depend on size and weight (and rose about $0.08/unit on average in January 2026), storage depends on season and volume, and advertising is discretionary. That has two planning consequences. First, in a fee audit, start with the charges you can influence — category assignment, price-vs-breakpoint position, size tier — before the ones you can't. Second, because referral percentages have been frozen since January 2024 while fulfillment costs drift upward, a margin that eroded since last year almost never eroded on the referral line; look downstream. The cash-flow calculator shows the whole stack against your payout timing.
Category assignment: how it happens and how to fix it
Your referral rate follows the fee category Amazon assigns to your listing — which usually tracks your browse node but is not the same thing. Assignment happens at listing creation from your product type and attributes, and Amazon can re-map it during catalogue updates without notice. That's why the audit habit worth keeping is checking your top SKUs' actual charged rate each quarter: pull a recent order's fee breakdown in Seller Central and compare it against this table. If the charged rate doesn't match the category your product legitimately belongs to, correct the product type and attributes on the listing first, and open a Seller Support case with the correct classification evidence if the rate doesn't follow. Fee-category disputes are winnable precisely because the schedule is published — the argument is only ever about which row applies to you.
More questions sellers ask about referral fees
Is the referral fee charged on the shipping I charge the buyer?
Yes. The fee base is the total transaction value — item price plus seller-charged shipping and gift wrap. FBM sellers who set their own shipping rates should margin on the delivered price, not the item price alone.
Do I get the referral fee back when an order is refunded?
Mostly. When you refund a buyer, Amazon returns the referral fee minus a refund administration fee — the lesser of $5 or 20% of the referral fee. On a $10 referral fee you get $8 back; the $2 you don't recover is a real cost of high-return categories like apparel, and belongs in your return-rate math.
Amazon charged me more than the rate in this table — why?
Three usual causes, in order of frequency: the $0.30 minimum beat the percentage on a low-priced item; the item's fee category isn't the one you assumed (check a real order's fee detail); or you read a whole-price tier as a portion tier. If none of those explain it, compare the charged amount against the published schedule and raise it with Seller Support — the schedule is binding.
Are these rates the same on Amazon Canada or Europe?
No — this table is the US (Amazon.com) schedule. Other marketplaces publish their own referral schedules with different rates, tiers and currency minimums, and some add marketplace-specific surcharges. If you sell internationally, price each marketplace against its own schedule rather than translating US rates.
Sources & how this table is maintained
Rates and tier structures on this page are Amazon's published US referral fee schedule ("Referral fees" and "Selling fees" help pages in Seller Central), cross-checked against Amazon's 2024–2026 US fee announcements — including the 2025 and 2026 decisions to hold referral percentages unchanged and the January 15, 2026 FBA fulfillment fee adjustment. Marginely is an independent seller-tools site: not affiliated with, endorsed by, or compensated by Amazon; no payment is accepted to alter rates or guidance; figures are Amazon's published rates, not our estimates. We review this table against the current Seller Central schedule on a recurring cycle and after each Amazon fee announcement, and the data here matches the category data inside our fee calculator so the two never disagree. Found a discrepancy? Tell us via the about page — we verify against the source and correct.
Last reviewed: August 6, 2026 · next scheduled review with Amazon's next US fee announcement.