What is an account-level reserve?

It is a normal part of selling on Amazon to see funds in the account-level reserve on your Payments report. It is the amount of money that is reserved to ensure that you have enough funds to fulfil any financial obligations not covered by delivery date-based reserve policies.

If you have funds in reserves, it will appear in the Account-level reserve section of the Statement view tab on your Payments report.

Common reasons for an account-level reserve

You have open A-to-z Guarantee claims

When an A-to-z Guarantee claim is filed, the claim amount will be reserved until the claim is resolved. Some claims can take up to 14 days or longer to resolve, but the reserve will be released after the claims are processed.

One or more of your orders has received a chargeback

Money might be reserved if your account has any chargebacks from transactions in the last 90 days. The reserve will be released after the chargebacks are processed.

Your seller performance has fallen below our benchmarks

Money might be reserved if performance metrics fall below our benchmark. Lower metrics frequently indicate a higher likelihood of claims, chargebacks, and returns.

Your account is under review

We might reserve funds if we notice an unexpected change in your sales or account activity, or if you are a new seller with estimated delivery times that are longer than your settlement period.

Local regulations require us to withhold income tax from you (varies by store)

Money might be reserved depending on your tax registration status and Amazon’s responsibility to withhold and pay income tax based on your sales. .

Multiple reasons for account-level reserves can be applied at the same time. For example, if an order for $40 has incurred a chargeback and an order for $20 has an open A-to-z Guarantee claim, the total account-level reserve from those two orders would be $60.

How are account-level reserves different from deferred transactions?

Most transactions are deferred for some period of time while they are awaiting order delivery or buyer payment. Account-level reserves are applied to your funds that have already been released for disbursement, for one of the reasons stated above. For more information, go to What is a deferred transaction.

How can I get my money faster?

In some situations, you might be able to take action to release funds faster: