What DD+7 Actually Means, in Plain Terms

DD+7 stands for Delivery Date + 7 days — officially called the Delivery-Date-Based Reserve (DDBR). Under this policy, your sale proceeds aren't released to your withdrawable balance until seven calendar days after the customer's order is confirmed delivered — not after you ship it, and not after the sale happens.

This replaced the older system many long-tenured North American sellers were used to, where reserve timing was tied to looser, more favourable terms. European sellers already moved to this model in September 2025. North American accounts were migrated on March 12, 2026, which is why this is landing as a fresh shock for a lot of US and Canadian sellers right now even though it's not brand new globally.

A Real Example: Order to Bank Deposit

Amazon's own Seller Central guidance uses a simple example that makes the mechanics clear. Here's how it plays out:

Why Amazon Made This Change

Amazon's stated rationale is risk management — giving buyers a window to receive, inspect, and potentially request a return or report an issue before the seller is actually paid out. Amazon has framed the March 2026 rollout as a standardisation move, noting that most sellers globally were already operating under similar DD+7-style terms; this update mainly affects longer-tenured North American accounts that had been grandfathered into older, more favourable reserve schedules.

That logic is reasonable from a buyer-trust standpoint. But it does mean Amazon is extending its control over seller operating capital by design — and the headline "7 extra days" understates the real-world impact once it compounds across thousands of orders and stacks with shipping time.

FBA vs FBM: Who Is Hit Hardest

The effect of DD+7 is not uniform across seller types. Fulfilment method and shipping speed determine how much this actually bites.

Calculating Your New Working Capital Requirement

The real question isn't "how many extra days" — it's how much extra capital do I now need to hold to keep operating without a liquidity gap. Here's a simplified way to think about it.

For a high-volume seller doing seven figures annually, this number climbs proportionally — and it's exactly the kind of gap that catches sellers off guard, because no single order feels different. It's the compounding across thousands of orders that creates the real liquidity pressure.

5 Ways to Bridge the Cash Flow Gap

Recalculating Your Reorder Point Under DD+7

Your reorder point — the inventory level that triggers a new purchase order — has always depended on sales velocity and supplier lead time. DD+7 adds a third variable that most sellers haven't built into their formula yet: how long it now takes for the revenue from current inventory to actually become available cash for the next order.

Reordering on gut feel was already risky. Under a tighter cash flow regime, it's significantly more so — over-ordering ties up capital you may not have as readily available as before, while under-ordering risks stockouts and lost Buy Box share at exactly the moment you can least afford a sales dip.

Getting reorder timing right starts with knowing your real sales velocity and demand trend — not guessing. This is precisely where accurate market and sales data does the heavy lifting, because reordering decisions made on stale or incomplete data are now more expensive to get wrong than they used to be.

Cash Flow Readiness Checklist

Run through this before your next disbursement cycle to confirm you're genuinely prepared for the new timeline.

Frequently Asked Questions