# What is Long-Term Storage Fees? Long-Term Storage Fees for Amazon Sellers Explained
Author: Himanshu Gaba
Author URL: https://sellerview.ai/blog/author/himanshu-gaba
Published: 2026-06-15
Meta Title: What Is Long-Term Storage Fees? Amazon Seller Guide
Meta Description: Amazon's aged inventory surcharge starts at 181 days and climbs to $6.90/cu ft. How long-term storage fees kill SKU profit and how to stop it.
Tags: Inventory Management
Tag URLs: Inventory Management (https://sellerview.ai/blog/tag/inventory-management)
URL: https://sellerview.ai/blog/what-is-long-term-storage-fees-amazon-sellers

Most sellers find out about long-term storage fees the same way: a random charge shows up on the 18th of the month, eats into a SKU they thought was profitable, and they have no idea where it came from. By the time they notice, they've already paid it three months in a row. Here's the simple truth: long-term storage fees (now called the aged inventory surcharge) are one of the quietest profit leaks on Amazon, and they almost always hit the SKUs you're least paying attention to.

## What is Long-Term Storage Fees?

Long-term storage fees, officially the aged inventory surcharge, are penalties Amazon charges when your FBA inventory sits in a fulfillment center too long without selling. The clock now starts at 181 days. Anything that's been sitting for more than six months gets hit with an extra fee on top of your normal monthly storage fee, assessed on the 15th of every month and billed between the 18th and 22nd.

Amazon's logic is straightforward: warehouse space is finite, and slow-moving stock is dead weight. The surcharge exists to push that stock out. Either you sell it, remove it, or you pay rent that climbs every 30 days. If you run FBA, this fee applies to you whether you've noticed it or not. The thing most sellers miss: this is not the same as your monthly storage fee. It's a separate, stacked charge. You pay both.

## How Long-Term Storage Fees Work on Amazon

Amazon scans your inventory on the 15th of each month and looks at how long each unit has been in the warehouse. The longer it's sat, the steeper the surcharge. As of 2025, the US tiers run like this (charged per cubic foot or per unit, whichever is greater):

- **181-210 days:** $0.50 per cubic foot

- **211-240 days:** $1.00 per cubic foot

- **241-270 days:** $1.50 per cubic foot

- **271-300 days:** climbs sharply, into the $3 to $5+ per cubic foot range

- **365+ days:** up to $6.90 per cubic foot or per unit


And this stacks on your standard monthly storage fee, which in 2025 is roughly $0.78 per cubic foot for standard-size items January through September, jumping to $2.40 per cubic foot in peak season (October to December). Amazon India runs its own version of the same penalty structure: different numbers, identical mechanic.

Here's a quick example. You send in 200 units of a product. 120 sell in the first five months. The remaining 80 cross the 181-day line. Now those 80 units start accruing the aged surcharge, and as they age into the 271+ day tiers, the per-unit cost can exceed what the product is even worth. That's how sellers end up paying Amazon to hold inventory they'll eventually have to destroy.

The trap is that this charge is unit-by-unit and SKU-by-SKU. Your blended account P&L looks fine. The leak is hiding inside two or three dead SKUs.

## Why Long-Term Storage Fees Matter for Your Profitability

Run the real profit equation: Revenue minus Amazon fees minus ad spend minus returns minus COGS equals actual profit. Long-term storage fees sit inside "Amazon fees," and they're the line most sellers never break out by SKU. That's the whole problem.

A healthy Amazon product should net 20 to 25% margin after every deduction. Long-term storage fees don't just nibble at that. On slow movers they invert it. Picture a SKU with an ASP of Rs 600 and a Rs 120 net profit per unit. If 50 units sit long enough to rack up aged surcharges plus monthly storage across two or three billing cycles, the fees can wipe out the entire profit those 50 units ever made, and then keep charging. You're now subsidizing Amazon's warehouse with money you already earned.

There's a second-order cost too. Capital trapped in aged inventory is capital you can't reinvest into your winners. Every rupee frozen in a 200-day-old SKU is a rupee not buying stock for the product that actually sells. The storage fee is the visible cost; the opportunity cost is the bigger one.

## Common Mistakes Sellers Make with Long-Term Storage Fees

**1\. Over-sending inventory "to be safe."** This is the number one cause. Sellers ship 4 to 6 months of stock in one go to save on inbound shipping or hit a supplier MOQ. The math never works. Send 2 to 3 weeks of inventory at a time for most SKUs. The shipping you save is pocket change next to the storage you'll pay on stock that doesn't move.

**2\. Watching account-level numbers instead of SKU-level.** Your overall storage fee can look small while two dead SKUs quietly bleed you. Nobody talks about this: the fee is per SKU, so your audit has to be per SKU. Blended dashboards hide exactly the products causing the damage.

**3\. Ignoring the 15th-of-the-month snapshot.** Amazon measures age on the 15th. Sellers who run a removal or liquidation on the 16th still get charged for that whole cycle. If a SKU is about to cross a tier, act before the 15th, not after.

**4\. Treating it as a tax instead of a signal.** A long-term storage fee isn't just a cost. It's Amazon telling you that product doesn't sell at the rate you're stocking it. Most sellers pay the fee and reorder the same quantity. The fee is data. Read it.

## How to Use This Knowledge the Right Way

1. **Pull your aged-inventory report monthly, before the 15th.** Amazon's Inventory Age and "FBA Inventory Aged 181+ Days" reports show exactly which units are approaching or past the threshold. Make this a calendar event, not an afterthought.

2. **Send 2 to 3 weeks of stock per shipment.** Match inbound volume to actual velocity. Let your faster-selling regions and SKUs pull more; starve the slow ones. Going slightly leaner beats paying aged surcharges every single month.

3. **Set a 150-day trigger per SKU.** Don't wait for 181. At 150 days, decide: run a price promotion, increase ad spend to clear it, or create a removal order. You want the call made before the fee starts, with a 30-day runway to act.

4. **Liquidate or remove the truly dead stuff.** If a SKU is past 271 days and not moving, the surcharge will only get worse. A removal order or Amazon's liquidation program almost always beats paying escalating rent on inventory you'll never sell at full price.

5. **Don't reorder dead SKUs on autopilot.** Use the fee as a kill signal. If a product consistently leaves stragglers that age into surcharges, your order quantity, or the product itself, is the problem.


## How Sellerview Helps You Track Long-Term Storage Fees

This is exactly what Sellerview surfaces automatically. It pulls storage and aged-inventory fees into your true profit picture, SKU by SKU, so a dead product can't hide inside a healthy-looking account.

See your real profit on Sellerview.ai. Start your free trial and find out which SKUs are quietly paying Amazon to hold stock you should have cleared months ago.


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