Overview

Amazon holds a portion of your sales funds in reserve until a set number of days after your orders are delivered to customers. This delivery date reserve policy directly affects when you can access your money, making it essential for sellers to understand how the system works and what steps can speed up disbursements.

Key Points / What Sellers Need to Know

• Funds are tied to delivery dates - Amazon calculates your reserve based on when shipments are actually delivered, not when orders are placed or when items are shipped.
• Standard hold period is 7 days after delivery - Under the default "DD + 7" policy, your funds become available for disbursement seven days after the carrier confirms delivery.
• New sellers may see all funds held initially - If you recently started selling or just had the reserve policy applied, it is normal for your entire balance to be held in reserve until deliveries start completing within the reserve window.
• Risk assessments can extend the hold period - Amazon may lengthen your reserve period beyond the standard seven days based on your account's overall risk profile and historical selling performance.
• Tracking data matters - When you use an integrated shipping carrier with valid tracking, Amazon uses the actual delivery date. Without tracking data, Amazon defaults to the latest estimated delivery date, which is often later.

How the Reserve Calculation Works

The delivery date reserve system ties your available funds directly to confirmed shipment deliveries. Here is a practical example: if you make a sale on January 1 and the order is delivered on January 6, under the standard DD + 7 policy your funds from that transaction become available for disbursement starting on January 13. Each transaction is treated individually, so your available balance grows incrementally as individual shipments clear their reserve periods. The reserve amount shown on your account reflects the total funds from all shipments still within their respective hold windows.

Monitoring Your Reserves in Seller Central

Sellers can track exactly which transactions are being held and when funds will be released. Within Seller Central, navigate to your payments dashboard and look for reserve-related transactions. You can filter specifically for reserve transactions to see a complete list of held funds along with their expected release dates. As each shipment clears its reserve period, the transaction status updates to "released" and those funds become available for transfer to your bank account. For more detailed record-keeping, you can also download a report of all reserve transactions through the payments reporting section of Seller Central.