FBA Reimbursement Claim Windows: The Exact Deadlines for Every Loss Type
By Archit Mathur · Published · Last updated
Short answer
Amazon's FBA reimbursement deadlines are not uniform. Inventory lost, damaged or disposed of in a fulfilment centre is claimable immediately and closes at 60 days. Inbound shipment shortfalls also close at 60 days but only become claimable around day 7. Customer returns never received back into stock become claimable near day 45 and close around day 105.
Reimbursement claims are the most reliably ignored money in an Amazon business. The units are genuinely missing, Amazon genuinely owes you for them, and the paperwork is genuinely winnable. The reason it goes unclaimed is that nothing announces the deadline, and the deadline is not the same for every kind of loss.
The single most important thing on this page
The window does not open on the same day for every loss type. Two of the five common categories are not claimable on day one at all - filing early gets them rejected, and then most sellers never come back to them.
The claim windows
These are the eligibility and expiry points Notifcentral uses when it reconciles an account, reflecting Amazon's reimbursement policy as updated in October 2025.
| Loss type | Claimable from | Window closes | Days you actually have |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lost in fulfilment centre | Day 0 | Day 60 | 60 |
| Damaged in fulfilment centre | Day 0 | Day 60 | 60 |
| Disposed without your consent | Day 0 | Day 60 | 60 |
| Inbound shipment shortfall | Day 7 | Day 60 | 53 |
| Customer return not received back | Day 45 | Day 105 | 60 |
Lost, damaged and disposed: the straightforward 60 days
These three behave the same way. A unit goes missing in the warehouse, gets damaged in handling, or is disposed of without your authorisation. The event is recorded in your ledger, the claim is valid immediately, and you have sixty days.
Sixty days sounds generous until you consider how these are usually discovered. Most sellers find them while reconciling a settlement, which happens monthly at best. A loss occurring just after one reconciliation and discovered at the next has already burned half its window before anyone looks at it.
Inbound shortfalls: the one that gets filed too early
You send 500 units. Amazon records 480. The instinct is to file immediately, and it is the wrong instinct.
Receiving is not atomic. Units from a single shipment are frequently checked in over several days, and a shipment that looks twenty units short on the day it arrives is often complete by the end of the week. Amazon's own guidance is to let the shipment settle before raising a discrepancy.
The practical consequence is a shorter working window than the headline suggests. The claim does not become properly investigable until around day seven, and it still expires at day sixty - so the real figure is closer to fifty-three days, and it is the category most likely to be abandoned after an early rejection.
Customer returns: the long one nobody tracks
A customer requests a refund. Amazon refunds them. The unit is supposed to come back into your inventory. Frequently it does not.
This claim cannot be filed straight away because the customer legitimately has time to return the item. The claim becomes valid around forty-five days after the refund, and runs to roughly day 105.
Of all five categories this is the one most consistently left unclaimed, for an obvious reason: the refund happened six weeks ago, it is emotionally closed, and nothing brings it back to your attention at the moment it becomes claimable.
What the claim is worth
Valuation depends on when in the order lifecycle the unit was lost.
Lost before a customer order
Valued on your cost of goods. This is why a reconciliation without a COGS figure loaded can tell you units are missing but cannot tell you what to claim - and a claim without a number is not a claim.
Lost after a customer order
Valued on the sale price less the fees Amazon charged. Usually higher than cost basis, and the arithmetic is derivable from your own reports.
Netting out what Amazon already paid you
Amazon automatically reimburses a portion of lost and damaged inventory without you asking. Any reconciliation that ignores this produces an inflated figure and sends you to file claims for money you already received.
A trustworthy number is losses matched against reimbursements already paid, with only the remainder surfaced. If a tool reports a "money owed" figure without stating that it excludes Amazon's automatic reimbursements, treat the number sceptically.
How to actually work this
The mechanical version is a monthly reconciliation: pull your inventory adjustment and reimbursement reports, match them, value the unmatched losses against your cost sheet, and file whatever is inside its window. It works, and it is tedious enough that it stops happening by month three.
The alternative is to have the reconciliation run continuously, so a claim surfaces with its countdown attached at the point it becomes claimable rather than whenever you next sit down with the reports. What matters either way is that something other than your memory is tracking the day each window opens and closes.
Commission, and what it buys
Managed recovery services file these claims for you and typically take around 25% of what they recover. On $40,000 recovered in a year that is $10,000. The trade is real - they absorb the administrative load and the chasing - but it is worth knowing what you are buying, because the finding and valuing part can be automated and the filing part is a form.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to file an FBA reimbursement claim?
For inventory lost, damaged or disposed of in an Amazon fulfilment centre, the window is 60 days from the event. Inbound shipment shortfalls also close at 60 days but only become claimable from around day 7, once receiving has settled. Customer returns that never came back to stock run longer, to roughly 105 days, because the claim only becomes valid about 45 days after the refund.
Why can I not file an inbound shortfall claim immediately?
Because receiving is not instantaneous. Units from one shipment can be checked in over several days, so a shipment that looks short on day one is frequently complete by day seven. Filing immediately produces a claim Amazon rejects for a discrepancy that later resolves itself.
Does Amazon reimburse some things automatically?
Yes, and this is why claim tracking needs to net them out. Amazon issues automatic reimbursements for a portion of lost and damaged inventory. Filing again for something already reimbursed wastes the case and muddies your own accounting, so any reconciliation worth running matches losses against reimbursements already paid.
What is my claim actually worth?
It depends when the unit was lost. Inventory lost or damaged before a customer order is valued on your cost of goods. A unit lost after an order was placed is valued on the sale price less fees. Without a COGS figure loaded, the first category cannot be valued at all.
Should I use a reimbursement service or do it myself?
Managed services file and chase claims for you and typically charge around 25% of what they recover. Doing it yourself costs your time instead. The economics favour a service if you value the administrative load more than the commission, and favour doing it yourself as recovery volume grows.
Get told automatically
Every six hours Notifcentral reconciles your FBA inventory and shipment records against Amazon's ledger, identifies units Amazon lost, damaged, disposed of or never received that were never reimbursed, and pushes an alert with the estimated amount owed and the days left to file. The claim pack - case text plus the evidence Amazon asks for - is generated for you.
How reimbursements alerts work →notifcentral
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