Selling on Amazon UK means clearing four gates in order: a seller account on Amazon.co.uk, a UK VAT position that matches where your stock sits, a fulfillment route, and a fee stack you have priced before your first shipment. The Professional plan costs £25 (excl. VAT) per month and the Individual plan £0.75 (excl. VAT) per unit sold, according to Amazon’s UK pricing page (data checked 2026-10-01). The gate that catches most non-UK sellers is VAT: GOV.UK states that a business based outside the UK must register “regardless of taxable turnover” if it supplies goods to the UK (checked 2026-10-01), so the £90,000 threshold you see quoted everywhere is usually not your number.
This is a single-country launch checklist; if you are still choosing which country to open, see Amazon FBA by country. Every figure below comes from Amazon’s UK seller pages or GOV.UK and is dated. It is orientation, not tax advice: confirm your VAT position with HMRC or an adviser.
The Four Gates at a Glance
| Gate | The question | Primary source |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Account | Can you pass registration with the documents Amazon lists? | sell.amazon.co.uk |
| 2. VAT | Does your setup create a UK VAT registration, and who collects VAT on each order? | GOV.UK |
| 3. Fulfillment | FBA in the UK, your own warehouse, or Remote Fulfilment from EU stock? | sell.amazon.co.uk FBA |
| 4. Cost | Plan fee, referral fee, fulfillment and storage fees, surcharges | sell.amazon.co.uk pricing |
All four sources checked 2026-10-01.
Work through them in order. A VAT decision made after freight is booked into a UK fulfillment center has already been made for you.
Gate 1: Setting Up Your Amazon UK Seller Account
Amazon’s UK seller homepage lists four things you need to register (sell.amazon.co.uk, checked 2026-10-01):
- a business email address or an existing Amazon customer account;
- a chargeable credit card, and Amazon states international cards are accepted;
- a valid passport or ID for identity verification;
- company registration details, “including VAT number”.
The obligation to hold a VAT number comes from HMRC, not from Amazon’s form, so settle Gate 2 before you treat that field as optional.
Amazon UK offers two selling plans, and the choice is arithmetic:
| Plan | Fee (Amazon UK) |
|---|---|
| Individual | £0.75 (excl. VAT) per unit sold |
| Professional | £25 (excl. VAT) per month |
Source: sell.amazon.co.uk/pricing, data checked 2026-10-01.
The break-even sits at roughly 34 units a month; the working is in Individual vs Professional plan.
For cash flow: Amazon’s UK homepage states it “settles the account balance 14 days after you register your Seller Account” and that the settlement process then repeats every 7 days (checked 2026-10-01). The same page advertises that eligible new sellers “can get up to £42,000 in incentives”, including 10% back on the first £40,000 in branded sales; read the eligibility terms before forecasting with it.
For the verification steps themselves and the errors that get applications rejected, see Amazon seller registration step by step.
Gate 2: UK VAT for Amazon Sellers
Start from where you are established and where the goods are when they sell, not from the domestic threshold.
The threshold, and who it is for. GOV.UK states you must register when “your total taxable turnover for the last 12 months goes over £90,000”. The same page adds that you must also register, “regardless of taxable turnover”, if you are based outside the UK, your business is based outside the UK, and you supply any goods or services to the UK (gov.uk/vat-registration/thresholds, checked 2026-10-01). A US, Chinese or EU seller storing stock in a UK fulfillment center is the second case.
The standard rate. GOV.UK lists the standard rate at 20%, with 5% reduced and 0% zero rates for specified goods (gov.uk/vat-rates, checked 2026-10-01). Price listings VAT-inclusive.
Who collects VAT on the sale. HMRC’s marketplace guidance (page updated 13 May 2022, checked 2026-10-01) sets out two cases:
| Situation | Who accounts for VAT on the sale to a UK consumer |
|---|---|
| Goods already in the UK at the point of sale, sold by a seller not established in the UK | The online marketplace: it “will be liable to account for the VAT on the sales made through its marketplace by a seller not established in the UK” |
| Goods outside the UK, consignment not exceeding £135 | The online marketplace “must charge and account for VAT at the point of sale, unless the consignment is a business to business sale and the customer has given their UK VAT registration number” |
| Either case, B2B sale where the customer gives a VAT number | The marketplace does not charge VAT; the business customer accounts for it |
Source: GOV.UK, VAT and overseas goods sold to customers in the UK using online marketplaces, checked 2026-10-01.
Marketplace collection does not remove the overseas seller from HMRC’s view. The same guidance states that “the overseas seller will remain liable for any import VAT and Customs Duty when the goods are first imported into the UK” (checked 2026-10-01). That is why you need a GB EORI number before the freight moves.
A conflict on Amazon’s own page. Amazon’s UK VAT knowledge page still tells non-UK established sellers to register once sales exceed a “UK distance selling VAT threshold of £70,000”, and quotes the domestic threshold as £85,000, although an FAQ on the same page states £90,000 (sell.amazon.co.uk/learn/vat-resources, checked 2026-10-01). GOV.UK’s current figures are £90,000 domestically and nil for businesses based outside the UK. Where they disagree, GOV.UK is the authority.
Reporting. Separately from VAT, HMRC’s digital platform reporting rules require platforms to report sellers to HMRC, with an exemption for sellers “getting a total of 2,000 euros or less (approximately £1,700) for fewer than 30 sales of goods in a year” (gov.uk, page updated 21 July 2026, checked 2026-10-01). Assume your Amazon.co.uk income is visible to HMRC.
For other countries’ thresholds see VAT registration thresholds by country; for who files the returns, see how to vet an EU/UK VAT provider.
Gate 3: Fulfillment Options on Amazon.co.uk
The four routes differ in where the stock sits, which feeds straight back into Gate 2.
| Route | Where stock sits | Key terms (Amazon UK pages, checked 2026-10-01) |
|---|---|---|
| FBA (UK) | Amazon UK fulfillment centers | Amazon picks, packs, ships and handles returns; FBA listings “can qualify for the Prime badge” |
| FBM (merchant fulfilled) | Your own UK warehouse or 3PL | You ship and handle customer service |
| Seller Fulfilled Prime | Your domestic warehouse | Ship over 99% of orders on time; cancellation rate under 0.5%; Amazon Buy Shipping on at least 98% of orders |
| Remote Fulfilment (UK↔EU) | Your EU FBA stock | Sell across the UK–EU customs border “without having to store inventory in the destination marketplace or register for VAT there” |
FBA in the UK is the default for Prime eligibility without running a warehouse. Amazon’s UK FBA page lists new-seller credits, including £80 in partnered carrier shipping credits and free monthly storage for 120 days under FBA New Selection, for sellers whose first shipment arrives within 90 days (sell.amazon.co.uk/fulfilment-by-amazon, checked 2026-10-01). The trade-off is Gate 2: UK stock means a UK VAT registration for a non-established seller.
FBM suits heavy, slow or high-value items and sellers with UK warehousing; the cost comparison is in FBA vs FBM. Seller Fulfilled Prime showed an “Enrol now” option on Amazon’s UK page on 2026-10-01, which lists a Professional seller account and a domestic warehouse as requirements, along with shipping over 99% of orders on time, a cancellation rate under 0.5% and Amazon Buy Shipping Services on at least 98% of orders; the page also says a trial period must be completed before enrolment (sell.amazon.co.uk/programmes/seller-fulfilled-prime, checked 2026-10-01).
Remote Fulfilment is the route for sellers already running FBA in the EU. Amazon states it works between the UK and its German, French, Italian, Spanish, Swedish and Dutch stores, that eligible products must not exceed “135EUR/122GBP”, and that “Amazon will be responsible for collecting and remitting VAT when handling cross-border orders on your behalf” (sell.amazon.co.uk, checked 2026-10-01). The alternative Amazon names, Local Inbounding, “means shipping your inventory to both your primary (e.g. UK) and secondary (e.g. EU) FBA networks”.
One route you cannot take is Pan-European FBA. Amazon states: “As of 1 January 2021, the UK is no longer part of Pan-European FBA” (sell.amazon.de, checked 2026-08-16, as quoted in our Pan-EU FBA vs EFN guide). A UK launch is its own inventory pool.
Gate 4: What It Costs to Sell on Amazon UK
Amazon publishes the main layers of the unit cost on its UK pricing page:
| Fee | Amazon UK figure (data checked 2026-10-01) |
|---|---|
| Selling plan | £25 (excl. VAT)/month Professional, or £0.75 (excl. VAT)/unit Individual |
| Referral fee | “Most referral fees are between 8% and 15%”, varying by category |
| FBA monthly storage, standard-size, all other categories | £0.76 per cubic foot (Jan–Sep); £1.51 (Oct–Dec) |
| FBA monthly storage, standard-size clothing, accessories, footwear | £0.62 per cubic foot (Jan–Sep); £0.82 (Oct–Dec) |
| FBA monthly storage, oversize | £0.55 per cubic foot (Jan–Sep); £0.87 (Oct–Dec) |
| Fuel and logistics surcharge | 1.5% on FBA fulfillment fees from 17 April 2026 |
| High-volume listing fee | £0.0003 per SKU, above 2 million SKUs |
Source: sell.amazon.co.uk/pricing, data checked 2026-10-01.
The 2026 fee reductions. Behind the “Reduced 2026 fees” banner on Amazon’s UK homepage, the pricing page states an average reduction of £0.15 per unit sold across its European stores, made up of these changes (checked 2026-10-01):
- Effective 15 December 2025: FBA fulfillment fees for parcels reduced by an average of £0.26, and the Clothing and Accessories referral fee cut to 5% for items up to £15 and from 15% to 10% between £15 and £20.
- Effective 5 January 2026, in all European stores: Home Products (a new category) from 15% to 8% for items up to £20; Pet Clothing and Food from 15% to 5% for items up to £10; Grocery and Gourmet, and Vitamins, Minerals and Supplements, from 8% to 5% for items up to £10.
- Low-price FBA rates extended in most categories to products priced at or below £20, an average saving of £0.40 per unit on newly eligible products.
The cuts are price-banded, so a £22 home product gets none of the Home Products reduction, and the 1.5% surcharge arrived in April, so an early-2026 fee model is already stale.
What a unit actually pays. Amazon’s own worked example on its UK FBA page shows a £500 phone in a small parcel paying a £35.00 referral fee, £3.00 fulfillment and £0.02 storage per unit, or 7.60% of revenue; a £375 wooden cabinet in a standard oversize band pays £57.80 in total, 15.41% of revenue (sell.amazon.co.uk/fulfilment-by-amazon, January–September rates, checked 2026-10-01). Treat that as Amazon’s illustration, not your margin. Model your own products with the free FBA fee calculator and check category rates in Amazon referral fees explained.
What Amazon Does Not Publish
- A per-size-band UK fulfillment fee table on the public pricing page. The page lists storage and the 2026 changes; the full rate card is in Seller Central, which we did not access for this guide.
- The terms behind the £42,000 new-seller incentive figure. The headline is public; the eligibility conditions sit in linked terms.
- An updated VAT page. As of 2026-10-01 Amazon’s UK VAT knowledge page carries thresholds that do not match GOV.UK.
Amazon UK Launch Checklist
- Registration documents ready: ID, chargeable card, company details
- Plan chosen against your expected monthly unit volume
- VAT position confirmed against GOV.UK for your establishment and stock location
- GB EORI number in place if you import stock
- Fulfillment route chosen: FBA, FBM, Seller Fulfilled Prime, or Remote Fulfilment from EU stock
- Unit economics rebuilt with 2026 referral bands, storage by season, and the 1.5% surcharge
- Cash flow planned around the first settlement 14 days after registration
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need a UK VAT number to sell on Amazon UK?
If your business is based outside the UK and you supply goods to the UK, GOV.UK states you must register “regardless of taxable turnover” (checked 2026-10-01). UK-based businesses register once taxable turnover passes £90,000 over 12 months. Amazon’s registration form also asks for company details including a VAT number.
How much does it cost to sell on Amazon UK?
Amazon UK charges £25 (excl. VAT) per month for the Professional plan or £0.75 (excl. VAT) per unit on the Individual plan, plus referral fees that are mostly 8% to 15% (sell.amazon.co.uk/pricing, checked 2026-10-01). FBA adds fulfillment and storage fees, and from 17 April 2026 a 1.5% surcharge on fulfillment fees.
Can I sell on Amazon UK from the US without UK stock?
Yes, as a merchant-fulfilled seller shipping from abroad; HMRC’s rules make the marketplace charge VAT on consignments not exceeding £135 sold to UK consumers (checked 2026-10-01). With EU FBA stock, Amazon’s Remote Fulfilment covers products up to £122.
Is the UK part of Pan-European FBA?
No. Amazon states the UK has not been part of Pan-European FBA since 1 January 2021; the cross-border options are Remote Fulfilment and Local Inbounding.
Conclusion
The UK is a single-country launch with its own tax authority, its own inventory pool and its own fee card. Clear the gates in order: account, VAT, fulfillment, cost. Settle the VAT question on GOV.UK before you book freight, and rebuild your margins on the 2026 fee card, surcharge included.