Amazon Business: B2B selling on Amazon from the seller's side

Amazon Business is Amazon's purchasing program for companies and public organizations. For a seller it comes down to one thing: the listing you already run starts trading on different terms the moment a verified business buyer opens it. Three things appear that consumer selling does not have: a separate business price with quantity discounts, an obligation to deliver a valid VAT invoice within one business day of confirming shipment, and the Invoice Defect Rate, a metric Amazon links to account deactivation. You do not need a new account. You do need new processes.

Sources checked: 25 August 2026. This article is not tax or legal advice. It draws on Amazon's own documentation (seller program pages, the Amazon Business invoicing policy, SP-API documentation, Amazon announcements on the European seller forums) and on official EU sources: the European Commission and the Your Europe portal. Amazon changes program terms, thresholds and fees on its own initiative, and several features have a different footprint store by store, so the version that binds you is the one visible in your own Seller Central account.

What Amazon Business changes compared with consumer selling

You do not open a second account and you do not build a second catalog. You switch on an extra layer over the listings you already have. The entry condition is a Professional selling plan, because B2B features are not available on the Individual plan. On amazon.de that plan costs 39 EUR per month excluding VAT (Amazon pricing, DE), on amazon.co.uk 25 GBP per month excluding VAT (Amazon pricing, UK). Referral fees come on top in both cases.

The B2B side of your offers is managed in Seller Central under B2B Central. Here is what actually moves.

One number deserves an immediate caveat. Amazon's own program page cites 8 million organizations served and 35 billion USD in annual sales (sell.amazon.com). Those are global figures with no measurement date and no methodology attached, so read them as an order of magnitude in marketing copy, not as an indication of how many business buyers will see your offer in the store where you actually sell.

Where Amazon Business actually works, market by market

This question decides the economics, and it is usually waved away with "Amazon Business covers Europe." It does not, at least not in one shape. Three features have three different footprints.

• VAT Calculation Service, meaning VAT exclusive price display and automated invoices. Amazon lists ten stores: Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland (SP-API documentation).
• Referral fee and FBA fee discounts on B2B orders. Amazon describes these for Germany, France, Italy and Spain only (Amazon Business seller program page).
• The mandatory Invoice Defect Rate threshold. Amazon's announcement on the European seller forums named amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, amazon.fr, amazon.it and amazon.es, effective 5 April 2021.

Our conclusion, not a quote from Amazon: the program is available far more widely than it pays off. Germany is the center of gravity, with France, Italy and Spain behind it, because those are the four stores where business demand is joined by an actual cost offset. If B2B is your reason to expand, that argues for opening amazon.de rather than layering features onto a store outside that group. Where the stock should physically sit is a separate calculation, and we work through it in the article on the Pan-EU program.

Switching it on: business price and quantity discounts

The mechanics are simple. The decisions behind them are not. A business price is a second price attached to the same SKU, lower than retail, visible only to a verified business buyer.

Business price

You set it one offer at a time in Manage Inventory (the Business price column), in bulk through a price and quantity file, or by rule in Automate Pricing (sell.amazon.com, updated 15 April 2025). On a large catalog the third option is the only one that survives contact with reality, because two manually maintained price lists drift apart within weeks.

Quantity discounts

A quantity discount works in steps: past a given unit count, the price drops. Amazon allows two formats, a percentage off or a fixed price, and a maximum of five tiers per offer. Tiers are not the place to experiment quietly, because the buyer sees them before contacting you. They, and not your bullet points, run the negotiation.

The 3% threshold that decides your fees

As of 1 October 2025 Amazon tied the fee discounts to the size of the discount you give: access to reduced fees on Amazon Business bulk orders requires a business price or quantity discount of at least 3% below your standard price (Amazon announcement on the European seller forums). In Germany, France, Italy and Spain there is a second condition, that the order contains more than one unit.

This article stops at the mechanics. How deep to set the discount against your competition, and how to avoid eating your own margin, are separate questions. The rules and tooling side sits in the article on Amazon repricing, the arithmetic in the one on Amazon profit margin, and running the policy day to day is what we do under pricing and promotions.

The one business day invoice, the requirement that decides everything else

This is the most important part of the article and the part most B2B guides skip. The Amazon Business invoicing policy states plainly that every seller must deliver a valid VAT invoice to an Amazon Business customer for every order, within one business day of confirming shipment. Sellers who do not charge VAT deliver a receipt instead. Credit notes on returns run on the same clock: one business day from the return being confirmed.

There are two ways to meet that obligation.

• VAT Calculation Service. Amazon generates the invoices and credit notes, or a third-party provider generates them from the VAT data Amazon passes on. Sellers who are not required to register for VAT in the EU or the UK can declare that exemption and let Amazon issue receipts on their behalf, which matters if you are established outside the EU.
• Your own invoices. You upload them yourself through Manage Orders, or push them from an external system connected to the account.

The channel is not cosmetic. Amazon has prohibited delivering invoices through Buyer-Seller Messaging, on the grounds that business buyers want to pull documents from their account rather than dig them out of an inbox. An invoice emailed to the buyer is, as far as the system is concerned, an invoice that was never delivered.

Invoice Defect Rate is an account risk metric, not an accounting topic

Invoice Defect Rate (IDR) is the share of orders from Amazon Business customers for which no invoice was uploaded within one business day of shipment, measured against the total number of orders from those customers. It appeared in July 2020 as a recommendation, and on 5 April 2021 Amazon turned the sub-5% target into a requirement, stating that failing it may lead to account deactivation (Amazon announcement on the seller forums).

The practical point: the denominator counts business orders only, not your whole order flow. At ten B2B orders a month, a single invoice uploaded late is 10%, double the threshold. A seller who enters B2B casually and treats invoicing as a Friday afternoon task is in the worst statistical position of anyone in the program, because a small denominator throws the ratio over the line on the first slip. Which is why the invoicing process has to be automated before business prices go live, not after the first warning email.

There is a convenient way out, and Amazon states it openly: when the invoice is generated for you by VAT Calculation Service, the IDR contribution for that order is zero. For a seller without automated invoicing on their own side, turning VCS on is the simplest way to stop this metric being a risk at all.

IDR belongs to the same family as the rest of your Account Health metrics and is monitored in the same place. What happens once a metric breaches and the account goes down is covered in the article on account suspension and the appeal plan. Pushing invoices out of an accounting system or ERP into Seller Central is work we run as integrations and automation.

What B2B means for VAT if you are registered in the EU

Here the panel instructions end and the accounting starts. Three things surprise sellers who have only ever sold to consumers.

1. OSS does not cover B2B

The One Stop Shop, which most cross-border sellers in the EU rely on, covers sales to consumers. The European Commission's Your Europe portal describes the Union scheme as covering cross-border sales of goods and services to consumers in other EU countries. A sale to a company falls outside OSS and is settled under the general rules.

2. Instead of OSS you are in intra-Community supply territory

Goods shipped from your country to a business in another EU country are an intra-Community supply. Your Europe puts the rule simply: if you sell goods to a business and they are sent to another EU country, you do not charge VAT, provided the customer has a valid EU VAT number, and if the customer does not have one you normally charge VAT at your own country's rate. The number has to be checked in VIES, and the movement of goods has to be evidenced.

Amazon collects VAT numbers from business buyers at registration, but the responsibility for getting the treatment right stays with the seller. One more thing that trips people up: an intra-Community supply only exists if the goods actually cross a border. If your stock already sits in the buyer's country, which is exactly what happens under Pan-EU, the sale is a domestic supply in that country and follows that country's rules. The VAT groundwork for European selling is laid out in our chapter on taxes on Amazon in Europe, and the implementation side is VAT, OSS and EPR.

3. E-invoicing: national mandates now, ViDA later

National e-invoicing mandates are arriving in stages and on different dates in different member states, so the only useful advice is to check the calendar for the country where you are registered for VAT. Above those national timetables sits one EU-wide reform worth knowing about, because it lands directly on the invoice you owe an Amazon Business buyer.

The VAT in the Digital Age package (ViDA) was adopted on 11 March 2025 and entered into force on 14 April 2025. It rests on three pillars: digital reporting requirements based on e-invoicing, updated rules for the platform economy, and a single VAT registration. The rollout runs until January 2035.

Source: European Commission, VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA), accessed 25 August 2026.

Our reading of that timetable, offered as an inference rather than as guidance: the document you have to deliver within one business day is on a path from "a PDF the buyer downloads" to "a structured e-invoice your tax administration also sees." Nothing about the Amazon deadline changes. What changes is the format and the reporting behind it.

The question to put to your accountant before you launch B2B, not after: if Amazon issues invoices on your behalf through VAT Calculation Service, who produces the structured file your national system requires, and how does the reference number from that system reach the document the buyer sees. We do not resolve that here, because the answer depends on your country, your accounting software and which invoicing route you pick. Resolve it first. The IDR mechanism has no grace period for tidying up a process.

Certificates and documents a business buyer expects

Amazon lets sellers display credentials on the seller profile: you pick items from a list of accepted certifications and attach digital copies, or supply company identifiers such as a DUNS number. Amazon notes at the same time that it is not a certifying body and does not help sellers obtain credentials (sell.amazon.com). Worth knowing: that catalog of accepted certifications is built around US procurement practice, so check the list that actually applies in your store before you plan anything around it.

Independently of that feature, the documents a business purchase genuinely needs come from product law, not from Amazon's policies:

• Declaration of conformity and CE marking for products covered by harmonized legislation. We unpack this in the article on CE marking on Amazon.
• The data GPSR requires: the responsible person in the EU, manufacturer details, warnings in the language of the country of sale. Details in the article on GPSR and product safety.
• Catalog data detailed enough to end the questions: dimensions, weight, case pack contents, the EAN of the variant and of the case. How to structure it is covered in Amazon product data requirements.

An observation from our own work, not a statistic: in business purchasing, a missing document blocks the decision more often than the price does, because the person on the other side has to justify the purchase to their own finance department. That inverts the logic of consumer selling, where the photograph and the price carry the result.

How bulk order logistics differ

Three things change in ways you can see in the cost line.

The selling unit stops being a single piece. In B2B Central you can build a packaging hierarchy and list a case and a pallet as separate units alongside the individual item (sell.amazon.com). That has real economic weight, because FBA fees are charged per unit: selling twenty pieces as one case is a different calculation from twenty separate shipments. The fee structure itself is broken down in the article on Amazon FBA fees.

Negotiation arrives with a clock attached. A business buyer can send a Request for Quote. In the UK store Amazon publishes the thresholds: more than 999 units, or orders valued at more than 10 000 GBP, with 100 units or 1 000 GBP in the books category. Sellers typically respond within one to two business days, and a quoted price is locked in for a minimum of 7 days, though the seller can set their own expiry (Amazon Business UK). Thresholds in other stores are published in local currency and Amazon does not publish one European table, so confirm yours in the panel. The practical consequence is that you need to know your true unit cost on the day you answer, because you cannot walk the price back for a week even if your purchase cost moves.

Inventory stops being a buffer and becomes a constraint. A single order for a few hundred units can empty a stock position that was covering a month of consumer sales. The damage is double: you lose the retail sales and you damage your availability signals. Replenishment planning is covered in the article on FBA inventory management, and choosing a fulfillment model is what we do under FBA and FBM logistics.

Who Amazon Business does not pay off for

This is an Amazonway recommendation derived from the program conditions described above, not a position taken by Amazon. Skip it, or postpone it, if you recognize any of the following.

• You have no automated invoicing. One business day per invoice on every order, against a sub-5% IDR threshold, is not a regime you can run by hand once volume picks up. The exposure here is not a fine, it is the account.
• You sell a small impulse product one unit at a time. A quantity discount has nothing to work with, and a business price simply removes margin.
• Your margin will not carry a 3% discount. Below that level the fee discounts do not apply, so you are left with a lower price and identical costs. That is the worst of the available outcomes.
• You sell only outside Germany, France, Italy and Spain and are counting on lower fees. Those four stores are where Amazon describes the B2B fee discounts. Elsewhere you get the business price and the discounts with no compensation on the cost side.
• Your stock is thin or your supplier lead time is long. A bulk order you cannot ship on time hurts your metrics more than a bulk order you never received.
• You are in the middle of adopting a national e-invoicing mandate. Launching a B2B channel during that migration means two new processes at once, one of them with a statutory deadline.

Rule of thumb: Amazon Business pays off where the product is bought repeatedly and in multiples, the margin absorbs a discount of 3% or more, and the invoice leaves the system without a human touching it. If one of those three is missing, fix that one first and switch on business pricing afterwards.

How Amazonway helps with this

B2B selling on Amazon rarely falls over on the price list. It falls over on process: the invoice that did not go out on Monday, the credit note for a return that nobody remembered, the buyer VAT number that nobody checked. At Amazonway this scope is part of ongoing marketplace account management and of the stages of the Waypoint framework: we put invoicing and metric monitoring in place before business prices go live, and we run the tax side alongside VAT, OSS and EPR.

A fair caveat: we are not an accounting firm or a law firm, we do not issue tax opinions, and decisions about e-invoicing and intra-Community supply in your specific situation belong to your accountant. We also do not promise sales results in the B2B channel, because those depend on the product, the price and on whether companies buy in your category at all.

If B2B is going to be a channel rather than an add-on to Amazon, at some point the question moves off the marketplace: your own wholesale price list, negotiated terms for regular buyers, quotes that do not fit a public listing. That side, a B2B platform with customer-specific pricing and quotes, is built by our sister brand Seedlight under B2B pricing and quotes.

FAQ: Amazon Business from the seller's side

Do I need a separate seller account for Amazon Business?

No. B2B features are switched on inside your existing account, in the B2B Central section of Seller Central. The condition is a Professional selling plan, which costs 39 EUR per month excluding VAT on amazon.de and 25 GBP per month excluding VAT on amazon.co.uk, in both cases on top of referral fees. B2B features are not available on the Individual plan.

Which European marketplaces does Amazon Business actually pay off in?

Availability and profitability are two different questions. VAT Calculation Service, which shows business buyers VAT exclusive prices and generates invoices, covers ten stores: Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, Sweden and Poland. The referral fee and FBA fee discounts on B2B orders are described by Amazon for Germany, France, Italy and Spain only. Confirm what is active on your own account in the panel.

Do I have to issue an invoice for every business order?

Yes. The Amazon Business invoicing policy requires every seller to deliver a valid VAT invoice for every Amazon Business customer order within one business day of confirming shipment. Credit notes on returns run on the same clock, one business day from the return being confirmed. Sellers who do not charge VAT deliver a receipt instead. Invoices sent through Buyer-Seller Messaging do not count as delivered.

What happens if my Invoice Defect Rate goes above 5%?

In its 2021 announcement Amazon stated that failing the requirement may lead to account deactivation. The metric counts only orders from Amazon Business customers, so with a small number of such orders a single late upload can push the result over the threshold. If the invoice is generated by VAT Calculation Service, the contribution for that order is zero. Check the current state of your own metric in the panel.

Do I report B2B sales to another EU country through OSS?

No. The One Stop Shop covers sales to consumers. A supply of goods to a business in another EU country is an intra-Community supply, settled outside OSS, with no VAT charged provided the buyer holds a valid EU VAT number, verified in VIES, and provided the movement of the goods is evidenced. If the goods never cross a border, because your stock already sits in the buyer's country, it is a domestic supply in that country instead. Confirm the treatment with your accountant.

How many quantity discount tiers can I set?

Up to five, either as a percentage off or as a fixed price for the tier. Discounts can be set offer by offer, in bulk through a price and quantity file, or by rule in Automate Pricing. Since 1 October 2025, reaching the reduced fees on Amazon Business bulk orders requires a business price or quantity discount of at least 3% below the standard price.

Will ViDA change how I invoice Amazon Business buyers?

It changes the format and the reporting around the invoice, not Amazon's deadline. Under the VAT in the Digital Age package, adopted on 11 March 2025 and in force since 14 April 2025, digital reporting requirements based on mandatory e-invoicing apply to cross-border B2B transactions from 1 July 2030, and Member States have been able to impose domestic e-invoicing mandates since the package entered into force. How your national format interacts with invoices issued by Amazon on your behalf is a question for your accountant, and it is worth settling before you switch business pricing on.

Sources

• Amazon, Amazon Business: the seller program
• Amazon, How to set B2B prices and quantity discounts (updated 15 April 2025)
• Amazon, Amazon Business: selling B2B in Europe
• Amazon, VAT Calculation Service, SP-API documentation
• Amazon, Request for Quote, Amazon Business UK
• Amazon, Selling plan pricing, amazon.de and selling plan pricing, amazon.co.uk
• European Commission, VAT in the Digital Age (ViDA)
• European Commission, Your Europe, Cross-border VAT
• European Commission, Your Europe, EU VAT One Stop Shop

Check whether your account is ready for business buyers

Before you switch on business pricing, it helps to know how many of your invoices currently go out late, whether a 3% discount fits inside your margin, and which market has real company demand in your category. We will review the account on those three points and tell you what is missing, before a metric does it for you.

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