Amazon FBA USA for UK Sellers: Costs, the FBA Calculator, and When to Use a 3PL Instead

TL;DR

Amazon FBA USA gives UK sellers access to Amazon's American fulfilment network, with Prime eligibility built in. The standard fee schedule covers referral, fulfilment, and storage charges, but international freight, customs duty, export paperwork, and US tax setup all sit outside it. Amazon's own calculator misses those costs too. For many UK sellers testing the US market, a third-party logistics partner can be a lower-risk starting point than sending stock straight into Amazon's warehouses.

Key Takeaways

Before you get into the weeds, here's the short version to keep in mind as you plan your US launch.

• A US FBA launch runs through Seller Central US, with its own fee schedule, inbound rules, and warehouse network
• Amazon FBA fees stack referral, fulfilment, and storage charges, and the figures change often, so check the current schedule before pricing anything
• The FBA calculator leaves out international freight, customs duty, currency conversion, and US tax setup
• US customs treatment of low-value imports has shifted recently, so duty assumptions need rechecking before every shipment plan
• A 3PL is often the better first move for sellers testing demand, shipping oversized goods, or wanting control over packaging and returns

Hold onto these five points as you work through the rest of the guide, since each one gets its own detailed breakdown below.

What FBA in the US Actually Means for a UK Seller

If you already sell on Amazon UK, the question is rarely what FBA is. The real question is what it costs to run the same model on Amazon.com, and whether sending stock straight into Amazon's US warehouses is the smartest first move. This guide walks through the full bill, shows you how to read Amazon's own calculator without being misled by it, and gives you a clear framework for when a fulfilment partner makes more sense. And if you are still at the planning stage, our guide to launching an eCommerce brand in the UK is the better starting point.

Selling through FBA in the US runs on separate rails from your UK operation. You list on Amazon.com through Seller Central US, ship inventory into Amazon's American warehouse network, and price in dollars. Amazon then stores the stock, picks and packs each order, handles customer service, and processes returns inside the US. Your listings qualify for Prime, which matters a great deal to American buyers.

For many UK brands, the US is the natural step after the continent. The volumes are bigger, the language barrier disappears, and the customer already understands Prime. If you are weighing both routes, our piece on expanding into Europe with a 3PL covers the closer-to-home option. Amazon FBA USA asks more of you upfront than a European launch, mostly because of the distance, the customs border, and the tax setup, and that is what the rest of this guide unpacks.

The Real Cost Breakdown

The costs split into two buckets. Amazon charges its own fees once stock sits inside its network, and everything before that point, from factory or UK warehouse to the receiving dock, is on you. Both buckets need pricing before you list a single unit.

Referral Fees, Fulfilment Fees and Storage Fees

Amazon takes a referral fee on every sale, a percentage of the sale price that varies by category. On top of that sits the FBA fulfilment fee, a per-unit charge based on your product's size and weight tier. Amazon storage fees then apply monthly per cubic foot, with surcharges for stock that sits too long and higher rates during the final quarter of the year. Inbound placement fees can also apply, depending on how you split shipments across Amazon's network.

We have deliberately left the exact figures out of this guide. Amazon revises its US fee schedule often, and any number printed here would age badly within months. Check the current rates on Amazon's Seller Central fee pages before you price anything. Taken together, these Amazon FBA fees claim a real slice of every sale, so the margin maths comes first, not last.

Shipping From the UK to Amazon's US Warehouses

Getting stock across the Atlantic is the first cost Amazon's tools will not show you. Sea freight suits pallet-level restocks and gives the lowest per-unit rate, though transit takes weeks. Air freight costs more and suits lighter, faster-moving goods or urgent restocks. Courier services fill the gap for small, carton-level test shipments. Rates move with fuel prices and season, so quote each shipment fresh rather than reusing last quarter's numbers. Our guide to the cheapest shipping from the UK to the USA breaks the options down carrier by carrier.

Shipping Direct From China to the US Instead of via the UK

If your products come out of Chinese factories, routing them through the UK before sending them on to America adds a leg of freight, an extra customs event, and weeks of transit for no gain. Shipping direct from China to Amazon's US warehouses cuts all three. Experienced freight forwarders shipping from China can arrange the ocean or air leg, handle export clearance at origin, and book delivery appointments at Amazon's receiving docks.

The cost structure works much like the China-to-UK lane. Forwarders quote ocean rates per container or per cubic metre, and air rates per kilogram, with origin charges and destination handling layered on top. For a sense of how those line items stack up in a comparable route, see our breakdown of what UK sellers pay to ship from Alibaba.

Customs Duties and Import Costs

Every commercial shipment entering the United States needs an importer of record, and as the seller, that is usually you. The product's HTS classification and country of origin set the duty rate, and getting the code right decides whether you overpay or invite a compliance problem. Sea freight also requires an Importer Security Filing before the goods load at origin, and missing it brings penalties.

Rules for low-value shipments into the US have moved around over the past year, so check the current position on the US Customs and Border Protection site rather than relying on older guides.

The UK side of the border has its own logic too. Our guide to customs clearance when importing goods covers the inbound direction, and the declaration principles carry across usefully when you export.

The Export Documentation You Will Need

Leaving the UK generates paperwork too. You will need a commercial invoice, a packing list, and an export declaration, with your EORI number on the documentation. Your forwarder prepares most of it, but you sign off on the details, and errors surface as delays at the port. Our rundown of the export documentation you'll need covers each document and who owns it.

The table below pulls the full cost picture together in one place.

Treat the table as a checklist rather than a price list, and build your landed cost from live quotes and Amazon's current published rates.

How to Use the FBA Calculator for a US Listing

Amazon's Revenue Calculator is the standard tool for checking whether a product stacks up, and it is free to use through Seller Central. Search an ASIN or enter your product's dimensions, set the marketplace to Amazon.com, and the tool returns the referral fee, the fulfilment fee, and an estimated per-unit margin at your chosen sale price. Sellers hunting for an Amazon FBA calculator USA edition are looking for exactly this: the same tool with the US marketplace selected.

What the calculator shows is accurate. What it leaves out is the problem for a UK seller. It has no field for international freight, no line for customs duty, nothing for currency conversion, and no view of your US tax setup costs. Returns sit outside it too. Run the tool naively and a product can look healthy on screen while losing money on every unit once the Atlantic crossing is priced in.

The fix is straightforward. Build your landed cost first: factory or warehouse price, freight per unit, duty per unit, and a buffer for currency movement. Enter that full figure in the cost-of-goods field. The margin the FBA calculator then reports is one you can actually trust, because every cost between the factory gate and Amazon's dock now lives inside it.

What Is a 3PL, and How Is It Different From FBA?

A 3PL, or third-party logistics provider, is a company that stores your stock and ships your orders on your behalf. Goods arrive at the provider's warehouse, sit on its racking under your ownership, and leave whenever an order comes in from any of your sales channels. If the model is new to you, our explainer on how a 3PL warehouse works walks through the mechanics.

The day-to-day service is pick and pack fulfilment: an order lands, a picker pulls the right items, a packer boxes them to your spec, and a carrier collects. Billing usually runs per order plus storage, so costs scale with sales rather than sitting as fixed overhead.

The difference from FBA comes down to scope and control. FBA serves Amazon orders inside Amazon's network under Amazon's rules, and in return your listings carry the Prime badge. A 3PL serves every channel you sell on, lets you shape the unboxing experience, and holds your stock without Amazon's long-term storage clock ticking in the background.

When to Use a 3PL Instead of FBA

Be honest about what FBA does well before deciding against it. The Prime badge lifts conversion, Amazon's delivery network is genuinely fast, and you carry no warehouse relationship at all. For a proven product with steady US demand, FBA is hard to beat on pure logistics.

The case for a 3PL starts when commitment is the problem. Sending a container of stock into Amazon's warehouses before you know the product sells in America ties up capital and exposes you to long-term storage charges if demand disappoints. A fulfilment partner lets you hold stock domestically in the US, ship orders from any channel, and test the market in smaller, cheaper moves. Our piece on the costs and benefits of multi-country fulfilment sets out how that maths works across borders.

Control is the second trigger. Amazon standardises the outbound experience, which suits some brands and suffocates others. If branded packaging, inserts, or gift options matter to your positioning, a 3PL gives you room that FBA never will. Product profile is the third. Oversized, heavy, or slow-turning goods attract FBA's least friendly fee tiers, and restricted categories face extra hurdles, while a 3PL prices the same goods on plain storage and handling, which can work out kinder.

Returns close the list. Cross-border returns are where US expansion plans quietly bleed money, and a domestic partner that inspects, regrades, and restocks returned units keeps that stock in play instead of writing it off. Our returns management guide explains what a good process looks like in detail.

Here is how the two routes compare side by side.

The two routes also combine well in the real world. Plenty of sellers hold bulk stock with a 3PL and drip-feed Amazon's warehouses with a few weeks of cover at a time, keeping storage charges low and stranded-inventory risk lower. If you sell across marketplaces as well as your own site, our overview of marketplace fulfilment solutions shows how one stock pool can serve all of it.

This decision point is where Gonini fits in. We run Amazon fulfilment alongside DTC and marketplace fulfilment from our own centres, so a test-first US entry and a later move into FBA can run through one partner rather than three.

And if you want a structured way to compare providers before choosing, our guide on how to choose a UK eCommerce fulfilment service gives you the questions worth asking.

Getting Your EIN and US Tax Setup Sorted

Before any of the logistics starts, the tax admin needs doing. Amazon's registration process includes a tax interview, and UK sellers complete it as foreign entities. Most also need an EIN, the US Employer Identification Number, which acts as your business's tax ID for customs and IRS purposes. You can apply directly through the IRS at no cost, and non-US businesses can apply using Form SS-4 by phone or fax.

State sales tax deserves a mention too. Holding stock in a state can create a tax connection, called nexus, and FBA moves your inventory between states without asking you first. The rules differ state by state, so take advice from a US tax professional before you scale rather than after a notice arrives. It is unglamorous work, and yet it is the part that catches UK sellers out most often.

Conclusion

The real bill for a US launch is Amazon's fee schedule plus everything the calculator hides: freight, duty, documentation, and tax setup. Price all of it before you commit stock, and the choice of route gets much easier. Amazon FBA USA rewards proven products with steady demand, while a 3PL suits sellers who want to test the market first, keep control of the customer experience, or serve more channels than Amazon alone.

If the test-first route sounds like yours, see how Gonini's fulfilment works from first pallet to daily despatch.

Or skip ahead and get in touch to talk through your US entry plan with our team.

FAQ

How much is the FBA fee in the US?

It varies by size, weight, and category. Check Amazon's current US fee schedule before pricing, as the figures change several times a year.

Can I sell on Amazon USA as a UK seller?

Yes. You can sell through Seller Central US with a UK business, though you will need US tax details and a plan for inbound shipping.

Is Amazon FBA still profitable?

It can be, in categories with healthy margins after fees and freight. Run the numbers on full landed cost before committing stock.

Can I make $1,000 a month selling on Amazon?

Some sellers do, and many do not. Results depend on product margins, demand, and costs, so treat any earnings claim with caution.

How do I start Amazon FBA in the USA as a UK-based seller?

Set up Seller Central US access, get an EIN, arrange freight, then send a test shipment. How Gonini works covers the 3PL route.

How do I ship products to Amazon FBA USA from the UK?

Sea freight suits bulk restocks and air suits speed. Compare rates in our guide to shipping from the UK to the USA.

Do I need a US company or an EIN to sell FBA in the USA?

You do not need a US company. Most UK sellers complete Amazon's tax interview and get an EIN from the IRS for customs purposes.

Is a 3PL cheaper than Amazon FBA for a UK seller entering the US market?

Often, yes, at low volumes or with bulky goods. See how a 3PL warehouse works to compare cost structures.

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