If you sell on Amazon in Europe and send your own stock to a fulfilment centre, you need an EORI number in your own company’s name. Amazon does not import your goods for you. Its own logistics onboarding guide states it plainly: “You will act as the Importer of record (IOR) or declarant for inventory.”
Everything else on this page follows from that one sentence – which number you need, how many of them, and what happens at the border when the declaration goes in without one.
Why the EORI number has to be yours
When you use Fulfilment by Amazon, you are doing two separate things that people routinely treat as one. You are importing goods into a customs territory, and you are storing them with a logistics provider who happens to be Amazon. Customs only cares about the first.
An import declaration names an importer. That party is liable for the duty, liable for the accuracy of the declaration, and identified on it by an EORI number. Amazon will not be that party for your inventory, and a fulfilment centre is not a customs warehouse – it takes delivery of goods that have already been cleared, by somebody, in somebody’s name. If that somebody is not you, it has to be a party you appointed and paid.
So the sequence is fixed: your goods clear customs first, under your EORI number, and only then become inventory Amazon can fulfil from.
Amazon’s EORI number is not available to you, and using a freight forwarder’s number as though it were yours is not a shortcut – it makes them the importer, not you, and it puts your goods on somebody else’s customs record. If you think you might already have an EORI number from an earlier shipment, check before you apply again: our EORI number check page explains how to confirm it.
Skip the paperwork – we file EORI applications in any EU member state for a flat €148. See how it works →
FBA: the number you need depends on where the warehouse is
There is no “Amazon EORI number” and no marketplace-specific one. There is the customs territory your stock is entering, and that is what decides it.
Stock going into an EU fulfilment centre
You need an EU EORI number, issued by a member state. One number covers all 27 – registering in the Netherlands does not stop you sending stock to Poland later, and joining Pan-European FBA does not mean seven EORI registrations. It is VAT that multiplies when your stock spreads across countries, not your customs identity. The difference between the two is set out on our EORI vs VAT number page.
Which member state issues it depends on where your business is established, and if you are outside the EU, on where your goods first clear customs. That is the part sellers get wrong most often, and it is worked through in which EU country to register your EORI in.
Stock going into a UK fulfilment centre
A UK fulfilment centre is a separate customs territory and needs a GB EORI number, issued by HMRC. Your EU number does nothing at Felixstowe, and your GB number does nothing at Rotterdam.
HMRC issues GB EORI numbers free of charge, usually within a few working days, and you apply directly with HMRC. We do not register GB EORI numbers. If you already have one and can’t find it, we can locate it for €148 – and if you trade with the EU, you’ll need a separate EU EORI, which we do register.
Selling on both sides of the border
Then you hold both. Amazon’s own customs handbook for UK and EU shipping puts it in one line: “It is likely that you will need both a UK and an EU EORI number.” Two customs territories, two imports, two declarations, two numbers – and the goods physically enter each one on their own account.
This is the single most expensive misunderstanding on this page. A UK company with a valid GB EORI that ships a pallet to an EU fulfilment centre has no EU customs identity at all, and finds out at the border rather than at the desk. The two systems are compared in full on our GB EORI vs EU EORI page, and UK sellers can start at EU EORI numbers for UK companies.
What the European Fulfilment Network does, and what it does not
The European Fulfilment Network lets stock held in the UK fulfil EU orders and stock held in the EU fulfil UK orders, and Amazon handles the border for those individual parcels. Amazon’s EFN handbook is explicit that by using it “you authorize Amazon and its affiliates to export goods (including signing a commercial invoice) on your behalf.” On the import side it splits by value: for business-to-consumer sales that do not exceed the low-value threshold Amazon accounts for the VAT, and above that – plus all business-to-business sales – the customer is the importer of record.
Useful, and frequently misread. EFN moves orders across the border, one parcel at a time. It does not move your bulk stock across it, and it does nothing about the import you already made when you sent that stock to the warehouse in the first place. That import was yours, and it needed your EORI number.
The low-value import rules changed on 1 July 2026 (see below), so check Amazon’s current EFN terms rather than a screenshot from last year. The customs-identity point does not change: the stock import is yours either way.
FBM: it depends who is named as the importer
With merchant-fulfilled orders you ship direct to the buyer, so the question is not where the warehouse is. It is which delivery terms you sold on.
- You clear the goods (DDP). You are the importer into that territory and you need an EORI number there. This is what most sellers want, because the alternative reaches the customer as a surprise.
- The buyer clears the goods (DAP or DDU). The consumer is the importer, pays the duty and any handling fee, and frequently refuses the parcel. It removes your need for a number and replaces it with returns, refunds and negative feedback.
There is no third option where nobody is the importer.
What changed for low-value parcels on 1 July 2026
The duty exemption for consignments under €150 is gone. In its place, the European Commission confirmed a temporary flat customs duty of €3 per item, applying from 1 July 2026 until 1 July 2028, on goods in consignments up to €150 sold in distance sales. The charge is per item by tariff classification rather than per unit, so five identical T-shirts in one parcel are €3 and a T-shirt plus a watch are €6. The Commission names the party who pays as “the declarant of the good, i.e. seller or importer of the good.”
That does not change whether you need an EORI number. It changes the arithmetic. Parcel-by-parcel shipping into the EU now carries a duty floor that bulk shipping into a fulfilment centre does not, because a pallet going into FBA is a commercial import, not a distance sale to a consumer, and was never covered by the €150 relief anyway.
Where a non-EU seller registers, and what an EORI does not cover
If your business is established outside the EU, you register in the member state where you first carry out a customs formality – in practice, where your first shipment clears. Not where your best marketplace is, not where your VAT adviser is.
The part that catches US and UK sellers is what comes next. A company established outside the EU generally cannot lodge its own import declaration: it needs an indirect customs representative, an EU-established party that declares in its own name and is jointly liable for the customs debt. Amazon’s customs handbook confirms the requirement applies when a business without an establishment in the destination territory imports there, and Amazon Global Logistics offers indirect representation in a limited set of lanes rather than everywhere.
An EORI number does not replace that representative, and no agent can register you out of the requirement. Get the number early, and start the conversation with a representative in parallel – finding one takes longer than the registration does.
US sellers should read EORI numbers for US companies for the full sequence.
What Amazon actually asks you for
Requirements differ by marketplace, and France is the strictest today. Amazon’s notice to sellers reads: “You must provide a valid Movement Reference Number (MRN) for all shipments to Fulfilment centers in France and a valid Economic Operators Registration and Identification (EORI) number.” It applies to sellers who are not established in the EU and are dispatching goods of non-EU origin to French fulfilment centres.
Read that as a template rather than an exception. An MRN is proof that a customs declaration exists; an EORI number is proof of who made it. Both have to exist before the goods arrive, which means the registration belongs at the start of your launch plan, not in the week the container sails. Typical timelines by member state are in how long an EORI number takes.
Six things that stall an inbound shipment
In the order we see them, not the order that sounds serious.
- No EORI number on the declaration. The broker cannot file, the goods sit, storage accrues.
- The name does not match the register. “Ltd” against “Limited”, a trading name instead of the legal entity. Customs compares strings.
- A GB number used at an EU border. Valid number, wrong customs territory.
- Duty-unpaid parcels sent to a fulfilment centre. A fulfilment centre will not pay your duty and will not clear your goods.
- A second application for a number you already hold. Forwarders create them, and some member states assign one automatically at first contact. Duplicates have to be unwound before anything moves.
- Indirect representation left until the goods are in transit. The number can be quick. The representative rarely is.
Five of those six are settled before anything ships.
What is changing for marketplace sellers
On 26 March 2026 the Council and the European Parliament agreed the largest reform of EU customs since the Union Customs Code. Three parts matter to anyone selling on a marketplace:
- An EU Customs Authority, based in Lille, analysing import data and flagging risk.
- An EU Customs Data Hub, one environment for submitting customs data instead of 27 national systems. It opens for e-commerce goods on 1 July 2028 and reaches full scope on 1 March 2034.
- Platforms treated as importers for customs compliance in the e-commerce flows the reform covers, shifting who is named on the declaration in some marketplace models.
For stock you send into a fulfilment centre, none of this changes anything in the short term: you are still the importer, you still register the same way, in the same country, with the same documents. The shift concerns parcels sold and shipped through a platform, not your own bulk imports – which is one more reason the customs identity behind your FBA inventory needs to be your own.
Technical elements of the reform were still being finalised by the co-legislators before formal adoption. The dates above come from the agreement announced on 26 March 2026 and may move. We update this guide when they do.
You can apply for an EORI number yourself, directly with the customs authority, free of charge. We charge €148 because we prepare the application, file it, chase it, and answer the questions that come back. Both routes are legitimate – pick the one that costs you less of what you have least of.
FAQ
Does Amazon provide an EORI number for sellers?
No. Amazon’s own number is not available for your imports, and Amazon does not act as importer of record for your inventory. Its logistics onboarding guide states that you act as the importer of record or declarant for your stock, which means the EORI number on the declaration has to be registered to your business.
Do I need an EORI number for merchant-fulfilled (FBM) orders?
It depends who clears the goods. If you sell on delivered-duty-paid terms, you are the importer and you need an EORI number in that customs territory. If the buyer clears the parcel, they are the importer – which removes the requirement and adds a duty bill, a handling fee and a refusal risk at their door.
Do I need a separate EORI number for each Amazon marketplace?
No. One EU EORI number is valid in all 27 member states, so Pan-European FBA does not mean seven registrations. VAT is the obligation that multiplies as your stock spreads, not your customs identity.
Does Amazon provide an EORI number for sellers?
If you hold stock on both sides of the border, yes. Amazon’s customs handbook says it is likely you will need both. A GB number is issued free by HMRC and you apply directly with them; the EU number is a separate registration in a member state.
Does Amazon provide an EORI number for sellers?
No. They are separate registrations for separate purposes, even in the member states that build the EORI number out of an existing VAT number. A declaration carrying a VAT number where an EORI number belongs is rejected.
Official sources
We link to primary sources so you can verify anything here yourself.
- Amazon — Global Logistics Seller Central onboarding guide (EU and UK), importer of record
- Amazon — Customs Clearance and Shipping Services Handbook for UK–EU shipping
- Amazon — Handbook: the European Fulfilment Network between the UK and the EU
- European Commission — Temporary flat fee on low-value imports, guidance and legal text
- European Commission — EORI guidance document (DG TAXUD)
- Council of the EU — Council and Parliament agree on landmark customs reform (26 March 2026)
- GOV.UK — Get an EORI number