Amazon FBA Shipping from China: The Complete 2026 Guide

Shipping to Amazon FBA from China used to be simple: courier a few boxes, done. Then tariffs restructured, de minimis ended, and prep rules got teeth. Here's the complete, current picture — from a team that ships to FBA warehouses daily.

First: sea or air?

• •Sea (25–40 days): your baseline restock lane — cheapest per unit by far
• •Air (3–7 days): launches, stockout emergencies, lightweight high-value SKUs
• •Express (2–5 days): samples and tiny top-ups only — the per-kg cost is brutal
• •The healthy rhythm: sea for the reorder you planned, air for the one you didn't

Prep requirements that actually get checked

Amazon doesn't inspect everything — it inspects the things that break its conveyor belts. The failures we see most: overweight cartons, missing FNSKU labels, wrong poly-bag types, and box-content labels that don't match the shipment plan. Every one of these costs relabeling fees and days.

Prepping in China fixes this at the source: goods arrive labeled, bagged and boxed to the destination marketplace's current spec, with photo proof before dispatch. It's also dramatically cheaper than US prep-center rates.

Duties and the post-de-minimis world

The $800 exemption ended in May 2025 — every shipment into the US now requires formal entry, with broker fees and full tariffs regardless of value. For FBA sellers this means: your landed-cost math must include duty from shipment one, not 'later when we're bigger'. China-origin goods often carry base MFN duty plus a Section 301 layer; the combined rate depends on your HS code.

Practical answer: get a landed-cost quote per unit before you commit inventory. Our calculator and quotes both show duties as a line item, not a surprise.

The restock timing nobody teaches

Stockouts kill rankings twice — lost sales first, then the buy box algorithm's memory. The math is simple but boring: reorder point = daily sales × (lead time + safety weeks). Sea freight's 30+ day lead time means Q4 inventory decisions happen in August. Air freight exists precisely because humans procrastinate.

We keep a per-SKU profile for every seller we work with: sell-through, lead time, and a reorder reminder before it's urgent. It's the least glamorous feature in this entire guide and the one that saves the most listings.

The 5-minute pre-flight checklist

• •Shipment plan created in Seller Central, FC assignments known
• •Cartons match weight/labeling rules for the destination marketplace
• •Landed cost per unit includes freight + duties — not just COGS
• •Reorder point calculated before launch, not after the stockout
• •Photos of labeled cartons before dispatch (we send these by default)