If you fulfil your own orders on Amazon in the UK or Germany, a wave of Fulfilled by Merchant (FBM) policy changes rolling out through 2026 will affect how you ship - and, for Amazon.de sellers, whether your listings stay active. The headline is a new 90% on-time delivery requirement in Germany that can trigger listing deactivation from September 1, 2026. But the specifics differ by marketplace, and it's easy to apply the wrong deadline to the wrong country.
The changes were posted to Amazon's German and UK Seller Central forums in late June 2026, and reported by Ecommerce News Europe and ChannelX. Here's exactly what's changing, where, and what it means for your margins.
What Amazon is changing for FBM sellers
There are three moving parts: an on-time delivery standard, an automatic tightening of handling times, and a new rule for Amazon Business orders. Each has its own timeline - and, importantly, the on-time delivery piece lands differently in Germany than in the UK.
1. On-time delivery: new in Germany, already in force in the UK
Amazon.de is introducing a requirement for FBM sellers to maintain an On-Time Delivery Rate (OTDR) of 90% or higher from July 15, 2026. OTDR measures the share of your seller-fulfilled orders that arrive by the estimated delivery date. If Amazon.de sellers miss the bar, affected listings may be deactivated from September 1, 2026 (covered below).
In the UK, that same 90% OTDR bar is not new. Amazon.co.uk sellers have been expected to meet it since September 16, 2025, with enforcement beginning after February 2, 2026. As Ecommerce News Europe notes, the requirement "already exists in the United Kingdom," and Amazon "will begin enforcing it more rigorously." So for UK sellers, OTDR is a standing obligation to keep meeting - the June 2026 update mainly tightens handling times, Amazon Business delivery, and customs steps.
2. Default handling times are being cut (UK and Germany)
This is the change most sellers will feel first, and it applies in both markets. Per ChannelX and Amazon's own forum posts:
- From July 15, 2026: the account-level default handling time will only offer 0-day and 1-day options - the old two-day default is being removed and converted to one day.
- From September 1, 2026: if a SKU's handling time is set at least one day longer than your actual shipping performance for more than 30 days, Amazon will automatically enable Automated Handling Time for that SKU, shortening your promised delivery window to match reality.
Amazon's rationale is that most sellers are already faster than their stated times - Amazon says 90% of FBM orders in its German marketplace already ship within a one-day handling window, and ChannelX reports the same baseline for Amazon UK. But if you've deliberately padded your handling time as a safety buffer, that cushion is going away, and your delivery promises to buyers will get tighter whether you opt in or not.
3. A business-hours delivery rule for Amazon Business (UK and Germany)
If you sell to Amazon Business (B2B) customers, there's an additional standard in both markets. From September 30, 2026, at least 90% of your business deliveries must arrive during the customer's business hours. Listings that miss the mark can be deactivated for business customers from October 30, 2026, per both ChannelX and Ecommerce News Europe.
September 1, 2026 means different things in each country
September 1, 2026 is the date to circle - but what happens on it depends on where you sell:
- Germany: it's the OTDR enforcement date. Amazon warns that "starting September 1, 2026, affected listings may be deactivated if the policy requirements are not met, and you may lose the ability to offer new FBM products" - Amazon's German Seller Central notice, as surfaced by Ecommerce News Europe. It's not just a performance nudge; it can pull SKUs off the market and block new self-fulfilled listings.
- UK: September 1 is mainly when Amazon begins automatically enabling Automated Handling Time for over-padded SKUs. The UK's OTDR listing-deactivation process has been running since earlier in 2026, so it isn't a fresh cliff-edge on this date.
Amazon posted these FBM updates for Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de, and related policy pages are also live for France, Spain, and Italy. This article focuses on that European package. Amazon.com has its own separate seller-fulfilled delivery rules, including a 90% OTDR standard, so US sellers should consult Amazon.com Seller Central rather than treating this UK/EU update as a US announcement.
A separate change arriving at the same time: EU customs
Don't confuse this with the EU customs reform, which is a different thing landing in the same window. From July 1, 2026, the EU abolished the customs-duty exemption on low-value imports (consignments up to €150) and introduced a temporary €3 customs duty per item, according to the European Commission. Amazon's own FBM policy layers on top of that: for shipments sent from outside the EU to EU customers, Amazon requires sellers to use an Amazon-approved carrier and provide Amazon's IOSS number plus ASIN-level product details for qualifying shipments. In short - the EU set the duty; Amazon set the shipping-and-paperwork requirements.
What this means for your margins, not just your metrics
Faster delivery promises are good for conversion, but they aren't free. Cutting a day of handling time often means upgrading to a quicker (and pricier) shipping service, holding more buffer stock closer to customers, or absorbing expedited carrier rates on orders that used to ship on an economy timeline. Multiply that across hundreds of SKUs and the "small" per-order increase can quietly erase the margin on your thinnest products.
This is where the decision gets real: for each FBM SKU, is the faster-shipping cost something the product's margin can absorb - or is that SKU now a better candidate for FBA? You can't answer that from Seller Central's headline numbers alone, because the true cost of an order includes your landed COGS, the shipping you pay, referral and closing fees, and any PPC attached to the sale. In SellerLegend you can review historical net margin per SKU after your recorded costs - landed COGS, Amazon fees, PPC, and the operating expenses you enter - are applied, so the FBM-versus-FBA call is a profit decision backed by your real numbers rather than a guess. If you're weighing the trade-off product by product, our profit tracking workflow is built for exactly this kind of per-SKU review.
What to do before the deadlines
- Know which clock you're on. Amazon.de sellers: treat July 15 (90% OTDR) and September 1 (deactivation risk/enforcement) as hard dates. Amazon.co.uk sellers: you should already be meeting 90% OTDR - focus on the handling-time and Amazon Business changes.
- Check your handling-time settings now. Find any SKUs where your stated handling time is padded well beyond how fast you actually ship - those are the ones Amazon will auto-adjust on September 1.
- Pressure-test your carriers against a 1-day handling default. If July 15 forces most of your catalogue to a one-day promise, confirm your pick-pack-ship process and carrier cut-off times can consistently hit it.
- Re-run the numbers on faster shipping. Before you eat the cost of quicker services, calculate the true per-SKU margin impact and flag any product that goes underwater.
- Segment your Amazon Business orders. If B2B is a meaningful slice of your sales, plan for the September 30 business-hours delivery standard specifically - it's a separate bar from consumer OTDR.
- Decide FBM vs FBA per SKU. For low-margin or slow-handling products, moving to FBA may be cheaper and safer than trying to defend a tight FBM delivery promise.
Key takeaways
- Germany: a new 90% OTDR requirement from July 15, 2026, with affected listings at risk of deactivation from September 1, 2026 if it isn't met.
- UK: the 90% OTDR rule was already in force (live since September 16, 2025, enforced from February 2026). The June 2026 UK update mainly tightens handling times, Amazon Business delivery, and customs steps.
- Both markets: from July 15, 2026 the default handling time drops to 0- or 1-day; from September 1, over-padded handling times are auto-shortened; and Amazon Business orders must hit a 90% business-hours delivery rate from September 30 (deactivation risk from October 30).
- Separate but simultaneous: the EU's July 1, 2026 customs change (exemption removed, temporary €3 duty) plus Amazon's own approved-carrier and IOSS/ASIN requirements for non-EU-to-EU shipments.
- Faster delivery promises raise fulfilment costs - check your true per-SKU profit before absorbing them, and use it to decide which products belong in FBM versus FBA.
Amazon's direction is clear: faster, more reliable self-fulfilled delivery, enforced automatically. The sellers who come out ahead will be the ones who know, SKU by SKU, which products can carry the extra cost - and which ones can't.
See your true per-SKU profit before the FBM deadlines hit - start a free 21-day SellerLegend trial.
Sources
- Amazon.de Seller Central - FBM requirements update (late June 2026)
- Amazon.co.uk Seller Central - FBM requirements update (late June 2026)
- Amazon.co.uk Seller Central - on-time delivery policy and shipping settings (2025 OTDR timeline)
- Ecommerce News Europe - Amazon tightens Fulfilled by Merchant requirements
- ChannelX - Amazon UK update FBM requirements
- European Commission - temporary flat fee on low-value imports (from July 1, 2026)
- Carbon6 - Amazon's New On-Time Delivery and Shipping Policy
