"Amazon takes 15%" is the number most sellers repeat, and it's wrong in a way that matters: Amazon actually charges two separate, differently-calculated fees on every FBA sale, not one. Confusing the two is why a seller's own back-of-envelope math rarely matches what Seller Central actually pays out.
Two different fees, two different jobs
Referral fee is Amazon's cut for the sale itself — access to Amazon's traffic and checkout. It's set as a percentage of your sale price, by category: 15% for most categories (Home & Kitchen, Toys, Sports, and others), 8% for Electronics, up to 45% for Amazon Device Accessories, and tiered rates for Clothing and Jewelry. Every category carries a $0.30 per-item minimum regardless of how small the percentage works out to.
FBA fulfillment fee is a completely different kind of charge — payment for the physical service of Amazon picking, packing, and shipping your item. It has nothing to do with your sale price. Instead it's set by your item's size tier and shipping weight, using a flat lookup table: a lighter Small Standard-Size item might cost $3.11 to fulfill; a heavier Large Standard-Size item can run well past $7.
These aren't two ways of describing the same cut — one scales with what you charge, the other scales with what your item weighs and how big it is. A cheap, heavy item can pay a small referral fee and a large fulfillment fee; an expensive, light item is the reverse.
Where the 2026 fuel & logistics surcharge actually lands
Amazon added a 3.5% fuel and logistics surcharge to every US FBA fulfillment fee on April 17, 2026. The detail sellers most often get wrong: this surcharge applies only to the fulfillment fee — never to the referral fee. A $3.48 fulfillment fee picks up an extra $0.12 (3.5% of $3.48); a $6.00 referral fee is untouched by it. Any explainer that describes the surcharge as "3.5% more on Amazon's fees" without that distinction is describing it imprecisely.
A worked example
Say you sell a $40 item in the Home & Kitchen category (the 15% "most categories" referral rate), shipping as a Small Standard-Size package weighing 10 oz:
| Line item | Amount |
|---|---|
| Sale price | $40.00 |
| Referral fee (15% of $40) | −$6.00 |
| FBA fulfillment fee (10 oz, Small Standard) | −$3.48 |
| Fuel & logistics surcharge (3.5% of $3.48) | −$0.12 |
| True margin before your product cost | $30.40 (76%) |
Notice the referral fee ($6.00) and the fulfillment fee-plus-surcharge ($3.60) are computed from entirely different inputs — one from the $40 sale price, the other from the 10 oz weight tier. That's the whole reason a single "Amazon takes X%" figure can't capture the real number: the fulfillment side doesn't move at all if you raise or lower your price.
What this doesn't cover
This breakdown covers Small Standard-Size and Large Standard-Size items up to 20 lb — the tiers most FBA sellers ship in. It doesn't model Large Bulky or Extra-Large/Oversize items, the Low-Price FBA discount, apparel-specific size programs, Small and Light, dangerous-goods handling, storage fees, or returns-processing fees — all of which can add to or reduce your real per-unit cost. Treat this as how the core fee stack works, not a complete accounting of every possible Amazon fee.