Amazon storage is four separate charges, and three of them can land on the same box

Key takeaways

• Storage is a base monthly rate, Q4 peak pricing on that rate, an aged-inventory surcharge by days in the network, and a storage utilization surcharge by weeks of cover. A slow, old, overstocked unit in November attracts three at once.
• 2026 base rates for the US: standard-size $0.78 per cubic foot January–September and $2.October 40–December; oversize $0.56 and $1.40; dangerous goods $0.99 / $3.63 standard and $0.78 / $2.43 oversize. Base rates did not change for 2026.
• The aged-inventory surcharge has started at day 181 since 2023 — not 271, not 365. The 2026 change is at the top of the ladder: a higher per-unit minimum for 271–365 days and a new 15-month-plus tier at $7.90 per cubic foot or $0.35 per unit.
• The utilization surcharge only applies if you hold 25 cubic feet or more of average daily volume and your ratio exceeds 22 weeks, and it skips your first 365 days on FBA, inventory under 30 days old, and dangerous goods.
• An earlier version of this guide adopted a reported July 1, 2026 change to $0.87. That change did not happen; a single vendor blog invented it. Every figure below is checked against Amazon's 2026 rate pages.

You probably carry one storage number in your head: a rate per cubic foot per month. It’s real. It’s also about a third of what you pay once inventory stops moving. Four separate charges sit on the same box, and this guide takes them apart, prices each one at 2026 rates, then stacks them back up so you can see the total.

01The unit everything is measured in

Every storage charge is per cubic foot per month, on your daily average inventory volume, billed between the 7th and 15th of the following month. Cubic feet come from the packaged unit as Amazon measures it, not the bare product:

cubic feet = (length × width × height, inches) ÷ 1,728

A 12 × 10 × 8 inch box is 0.556 cubic feet. The same product in an 8 × 8 × 6 box is 0.222 cubic feet — 60% less on every layer, every month, permanently. Packaging is a storage decision before it is a shipping one.

02Layer 1 — the base monthly rate (2026)

Size tier	January–September	October–December
Standard-size	$0.78 / cu ft	$2.40 / cu ft
Oversize (bulky)	$0.56 / cu ft	$1.40 / cu ft
Dangerous goods, standard	$0.99 / cu ft	$3.63 / cu ft
Dangerous goods, oversize	$0.78 / cu ft	$2.43 / cu ft

These are unchanged from 2025. Amazon’s 2026 fee update raised fulfillment fees by an average of $0.08 per unit and left monthly storage rates alone.

On the $0.87 figure. The previous version of this guide, and several sites still in circulation, quoted a change effective July 1, 2026 taking the standard rate to $0.87 and moving the aged-inventory trigger from 271 to 180 days. That report traces to one analytics vendor’s news page and to nothing else. Amazon published no such change; the mid-year 2026 changes were the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on fulfillment fees from April 17 and the peak fulfillment fee window from October 15. If you built a Q4 budget on $0.87 you have over-provisioned by 12%, which is the least harmful direction to be wrong in — but fix the model.

03Layer 2 — Q4 peak pricing

From October through December the base rate itself rises: standard $0.78 to $2.40, oversize $0.56 to $1.40. Two consequences that are easy to miss.

It applies to what is already there. It is not a charge on units sent in October. It is the rate on the daily average volume sitting in the network during those months, including a pallet that arrived in June and has not moved.

It does not change the surcharge tiers above it. The utilization and aged surcharges keep the same rates in Q4; only the base underneath changes. Peak pricing multiplies your worst inventory rather than replacing the penalty on it.

Planning rule: send what you can sell in eight to ten weeks during peak, not ninety days of cover. A September shipment of ninety days’ supply pays $2.40 through November and December on the part that does not move.

04Layer 3 — the aged-inventory surcharge

Charged on how long a unit has been in the network, assessed on the 15th of each month, on top of the base rate. The ladder has started at day 181 since Amazon replaced the old long-term storage fee; advice built around day 271 or day 365 is describing rules that ended in 2023.

Days in fulfillment center	Surcharge, per cu ft per month	Per-unit minimum (whichever is greater)
181–210	$0.50	—
211–240	$1.00	—
241–270	$1.50	—
271–300	$3.80	$0.30 (raised from $0.15 for 2026)
301–330	$4.00	$0.30
331–365	$4.20	$0.30
366–450 (12–15 months)	$6.90	$0.30
451+ (15 months and over)	$7.90	$0.35 — new tier for 2026

The 2026 change is at the top: the per-unit floor for the 271–365-day bands rose to $0.30, and a 15-month-plus tier was added at $7.90 per cubic foot. Nothing changed at the entry point. The exact day boundary of the new tier is stated on the Aged inventory surcharge page in Seller Central; the reporting we have seen gives it as “over 15 months”, and the table above uses the calendar equivalent.

Treat 180 days as the deadline and 150 as the decision point. A removal order takes days to process and a promotional sell-down takes weeks, and the surcharge is assessed on the 15th — a unit that turns 181 days on the 14th is charged for the whole month.

05Layer 4 — the storage utilization surcharge

Charged on a completely different basis: weeks of cover, not age and not volume.

storage utilization ratio = average daily inventory volume (cu ft)
                          ÷ average daily shipped volume (cu ft), trailing 13 weeks

Ratio (weeks)	Standard-size, per cu ft per month	Oversize, per cu ft per month
22–28	$0.44	$0.23
28–36	$0.76	$0.46
36–44	$1.16	$0.63
44–52	$1.58	$0.76
Over 52	$1.88	$1.26

Exemptions, which take a large share of small sellers out entirely: it does not apply if your average daily inventory in that size tier is below 25 cubic feet; it does not apply for 365 days after your first FBA shipment; inventory under 30 days old is excluded from the calculation; dangerous goods are not charged it at all.

If you are under 25 cubic feet in a size tier, stop thinking about this layer. If you are over it, note that the measure is a ratio — so the surcharge gets worse when sales slow, even if you send in nothing. The opposite failure — running so thin that the low-inventory-level fee switches on — is the other wall of the corridor.

06How they stack

One standard-size box, 0.556 cubic feet, received in March, on 30 weeks of cover, in November:

Layer	Rate	Monthly cost for this box
Base rate, Q4	$2.40 / cu ft	$1.33
Aged inventory, 241–270 days	$1.50 / cu ft	$0.83
Utilization surcharge, 28–36 weeks	$0.76 / cu ft	$0.42
Total		$2.58 per month

A seller modeling storage at the off-peak base rate would have budgeted $0.43 for that box. The real figure is six times that. No single rate is shocking; it is four charges on four bases producing a number nobody reaches by holding one figure in their head.

07The reports to pull

Seller Central > Reports > Fulfillment > Monthly Storage Fees — what you were charged, per ASIN, with the cubic feet used. This is a measurement of your bill; any blog table, including this one, is a model of the fee schedule.

Seller Central > Inventory > Inventory Planning > Manage Inventory Health — inventory age buckets, estimated aged-inventory surcharge and storage utilization ratio per FNSKU. Sort by age; anything over 150 days goes on the decision list.

Seller Central > Reports > Fulfillment > Inventory > Inventory Age — the CSV, if you want to filter by age bucket and sell-through in a spreadsheet.

Seller Central > Inventory > Inventory Planning > Manage Inventory Health also shows your storage utilization ratio and estimated surcharge — the place to check whether the 25-cubic-foot floor and 22-week ratio apply to you at all.

08What to do about it

• Audit packaging before anything else. Cubic feet multiply every layer, and the packaged size also sets your fulfillment fee tier. It is the only change here that pays back on every future unit.
• Set a 150-day review, not a 271-day one. Build it into a monthly routine using the Inventory Age report, and run each flagged SKU through the remove-or-hold decision.
• Check whether the utilization surcharge applies to you at all, using the report above, before optimizing against a charge you may not pay.
• Decide your Q4 position in August and act by September 30. Every corrective action — removal, liquidation, promotion — costs more and works slower during peak.
• Re-check rates each January. Amazon’s annual fee update takes effect mid-January. Rate tables built the previous spring will be stale by then.

Check it on your own package. The dimensional weight calculator takes packed dimensions and weight and returns billable weight and cubic feet — the two figures that drive freight and storage. Nothing is stored and nothing leaves your browser.

Pull the Monthly Storage Fees report before you do anything else. If the number on it surprises you, the surprise is almost always one of the three upper layers — and now you know which report shows which.

Frequently asked

What is the 2026 FBA monthly storage rate?

Standard-size $0.78 per cubic foot January–September and $2.October 40–December; oversize $0.56 and $1.40; dangerous goods $0.99 / $3.63 standard and $0.78 / $2.43 oversize. Unchanged from 2025.

Did the standard rate change to $0.87 in July 2026?

No. That figure came from a single vendor blog and was never published by Amazon. Amazon's mid-2026 changes were the 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge on fulfillment fees from April 17 and the holiday peak fulfillment fee from October 15.

When does the aged-inventory surcharge start?

Day 181, at $0.50 per cubic foot per month, rising by band to $6.90 after 365 days. For 2026 Amazon raised the per-unit minimum on the 271–365-day bands to $0.30 and added a 15-month-plus tier at $7.90 per cubic foot or $0.35 per unit.

Can I be charged more than one storage fee on the same unit?

Yes. Base rate by volume, peak by calendar, aged surcharge by age and utilization surcharge by weeks of cover are triggered independently. A slow, old, overstocked unit in November attracts three at once.

Does the utilization surcharge apply to small sellers?

Only if your average daily inventory in the size tier is 25 cubic feet or more and your utilization ratio exceeds 22 weeks. It also does not apply for 365 days after your first FBA shipment, to inventory under 30 days old, or to dangerous goods.

When are storage fees charged?

Monthly, between the 7th and 15th of the following month, on daily average volume. The aged-inventory surcharge is assessed on the 15th on inventory age as of that date.

Sources

1. Update to U.S. Referral and Fulfillment by Amazon fees for 2026 (fulfillment fees +$0.08 average; no new fee types), Amazon Selling Partner Services Primary source accessed 2026-09-04
2. 2026 US Referral and FBA fee changes summary (aged inventory surcharge: $0.30 per-unit minimum for 271–365 days; new 15-month tier), Amazon Seller Central Help Primary source accessed 2026-09-04
3. 2026 Amazon FBA fee changes: full rate card (monthly storage $0.78/$2.40 and $0.56/$1.40; dangerous goods $0.99/$3.63 and $0.78/$2.43; utilization surcharge 25 cu ft and 22-week conditions), Goat Consulting Secondary accessed 2026-09-04
4. Amazon FBA fees 2026: full breakdown (aged inventory: 12–15 months $0.30/unit or $6.90/cu ft; 15+ months $0.35/unit or $7.90/cu ft), AMZ Prep Secondary accessed 2026-09-04
5. Amazon FBA storage fees 2026 (utilization surcharge bands $0.44–$1.88 standard, $0.23–$1.26 oversize; exemptions; peak tiers unchanged), ConversionPerk Secondary accessed 2026-09-04