Overview

Sellers see Amazon error code 13038 when a bulk inventory or pricing file contains a sale start date that falls outside Amazon’s permitted window. The validation blocks the feed, delaying promotional pricing. Fixing the date format and range quickly restores the upload and keeps sales on schedule.

Key Points

• Error trigger — The system rejects any feed where the sale start date is earlier than 1970‑01‑01 or later than 2038‑01‑18.
• Accepted range — Valid dates must be between January 1, 1970 and January 18, 2038, inclusive.
• Affected feeds — Both flat‑file inventory uploads and XML pricing feeds are subject to the same date validation.
• Resolution method — Editing the offending date to a compliant value and resubmitting the file clears the error; no support ticket is required.
• Common cause — Typos, misplaced delimiters, or default placeholder values (e.g., 1970‑01‑01 or 2099‑12‑31) often push the date outside the allowed span.

How Error 13038 Occurs

1. Date entry mistake — A seller types “2024‑13‑01” for a sale start date, which the system interprets as an invalid month and consequently as a date outside the 1970‑2038 window.
2. Incorrect timestamp format — An automated spreadsheet exports a timestamp like “2024/05/01 00:00:00” instead of the required “2024‑05‑01”, causing the parser to read the value as out‑of‑range.
3. Placeholder or epoch‑zero value — Some third‑party tools insert “1970‑01‑01” as a default when a date field is left blank; if the seller intended a future launch, the feed is rejected for using the lower bound.
4. Future‑date overflow — A seller plans a promotional event for “2040‑06‑15”. Because the upper limit is 2038‑01‑18, the feed fails validation and returns error 13038.
5. XML schema mismatch — In an XML pricing feed, the <SaleStartDate> element contains “2025‑02‑30”, a non‑existent calendar date, which the XSD validation flags as outside the acceptable range.