Running your Amazon business after reinstatement: daily checks to reduce suspension risk

This article is for sellers who have been reinstated but still worry about being suspended again. Based on Seller Central Help, we cover which screens to check right after reinstatement, how to set the frequency of your checks based on each metric's calculation period, how to turn your plan of action into day-to-day operating procedures, and how to manage the people, permissions, and contact details on your account.

Reinstatement isn't a return to "business as usual" — it's a fresh round of checks

Once you're reinstated, it's tempting to scale sales straight back up to where they were. However, suspensions of individual listings, holds on your funds, violation records, and similar items may be handled separately from the reinstatement of your account. The place to start is confirming your current status, one item at a time.

Note that this article summarizes the policies and metrics relevant to day-to-day account management based on Help content as of September 2026. Policies and screens can change, so please also check the latest Help pages.

Taking stock right after reinstatement: what to check in the first week

Use the first week to identify "what's still outstanding" before you expand sales. Following the order Help gives for checking removed listings (Product Policy Compliance → Manage Inventory → Performance Notifications) as a backbone, going through the screens in the order below helps you avoid missing anything.

Step	Where to look	What to confirm
1	Performance (パフォーマンス) → Account Health (アカウント健全性)	Your score and color, any remaining violations, and the status of each metric
2	"View all" (すべて表示) under Product Policy Compliance (商品規約の遵守)	History of removed listings and images, their status, and any "Next steps" (次の手順) guidance
3	"Inactive" (停止中) in Manage Inventory (在庫管理)	Inactive listings and the reasons they're inactive
4	Performance → Performance Notifications (パフォーマンス通知)	Details of removals or restrictions and the actions you're being asked to take
5	Manage Your Compliance (コンプライアンスの管理) and Extended Producer Responsibility (拡大生産者責任)	Issues related to product safety and similar matters that don't appear on the Account Health page
6	Performance Notifications, etc. (if you use FBA)	FBA inventory held for counterfeit or restricted-product investigations, and deadlines for submitting documents or other information (inventory may be disposed of if you don't submit)
7	Payments report (ペイメントレポート)	Your balance and the status of any holds on your funds
8	Settings (設定) → Notification Preferences (通知設定)	The email address that receives notifications, and the verification status of your emergency contact
9	Settings → Account Info (出品用アカウント情報)	Whether the seller information displayed under Japan's Act on Specified Commercial Transactions is up to date and accurate

Listings removed because of seller-initiated cancellations can be found by filtering the Inactive tab in Manage Inventory by the reason "Pending" (保留中). Updating the price makes them active again, but unless you fix the underlying cause, such as inventory count discrepancies, the same thing may happen again.

As a rule, Amazon holds funds for 90 days when it determines there is risk, and the hold may be extended if the risk persists or an investigation is needed. Official Help doesn't explain how reinstatement relates to the timing of payouts, so don't plan purchasing or payments on the assumption that funds will be disbursed right away. We cover how to check this in How to check your funds after a suspension.

Professional sellers, sellers that are businesses, and individual sellers who list on a continuing, repeated basis must display in their seller information the details required by Japan's Act on Specified Commercial Transactions: business name, phone number, address (P.O. boxes are not allowed), name of the person responsible for operations, store name, and any required license information (such as a secondhand dealer license number). Missing or false information can result in measures such as a temporary suspension of your listings, so consult a professional if you're unsure whether your information is compliant.

Violation records may remain even after reinstatement

Help explains that a suspension caused by your rating is lifted when your score returns to 100 or higher after you address the violations or submit an appeal. It also states that during such a suspension, violations remain on the page and are not removed even after 180 days have passed. Amazon does not officially state which violations disappear after reinstatement or when, and simply changing a listing's status — closing the listing or deleting it from inventory, for example — does not clear a violation. Write down the date, ASIN, policy name, and severity of each violation still shown on screen and keep them in a list.

If your suspension lasted a long time, keep the "seller-fulfilled review" triggers in mind

Amazon may place a seller-fulfilled account "under review" (審査中) to confirm that recent seller-fulfilled orders were delivered (the review period is said to be 30 days or less). While under review, your ability to list products or receive payments may be temporarily restricted. Example triggers include not having sold for a long period, a sudden spike in sales, and a major change in the kinds of inventory you list, and Help says an account may be placed under review when several of these triggers apply at the same time. The relationship to reinstatement isn't stated, but these triggers could apply if your suspension lasted a long time or you sharply increase your product count right after reinstatement, so it's safest to ramp sales back up gradually. We summarize what to check when you're restricted in What to check when seller-fulfilled selling is disabled.

When a new notification arrives, don't assume it has the same cause as last time

If you receive a warning after reinstatement, don't assume "this is the same issue as before." Compare the violation list you made while taking stock against the new notification's ASIN, policy name, severity, and date, line by line. Record any item that doesn't match as a new issue and track your response to it separately, and if the same policy name appears more than once, check the "Impact" (影響) column to see whether you're approaching the repeat-violation limit.

Set how often you check based on each metric's time window

Each metric is calculated from figures over a fixed period. Knowing how long a late shipment or a negative rating today will keep affecting a metric makes it easier to decide what to check every day and what to review weekly or monthly.

Item	Calculation period	Guideline / target
Account Health Rating	Past 180 days	Green (Healthy) 200–1,000, yellow (At Risk) 100–199, red (Unhealthy) 99 or below
Number of repeat violations	Within 180 days	Reaching the limit may lead to immediate suspension. For high-severity violations, the limit may be as low as two
Order Defect Rate	60 days	Keep below 1%
Cancellation Rate	7 days	Keep below 2.5% (seller-fulfilled only)
Late Shipment Rate	10 or 30 days	Keep below 4% (seller-fulfilled only)
Valid Tracking Rate	30 days (per category)	Keep above 95% (seller-fulfilled only)

Cancellation Rate and Late Shipment Rate have short calculation periods of 7 and 10 days, so a single order can move the rate significantly, especially when order volume is low. If you fulfill orders yourself, include them in your daily checks. Track the trends in Order Defect Rate and your score, which are calculated over 60 and 180 days, on a weekly or monthly basis (for how the score works, see How the score rises and falls and how to check it).

Under the policy that took effect on July 23, 2025, your account may be suspended immediately if violations of the same policy reach the limit within 180 days. Help distinguishes between a "dispute" (異議申し立て), in which you contend the violation never occurred, and a "reconsideration" (申し立て), in which you accept the violation and explain that it wasn't intentional or describe the corrections you've made. For that reason, even a violation removed from the page after an approved reconsideration may still count toward your repeat count within 180 days if you didn't dispute it. Be especially careful about violations of the same type that led to your suspension for roughly six months after reinstatement.

Separate from these time windows, there are also response deadlines.

Deadline	Applies to
Within 24 hours (recommended)	Responding to buyer inquiries
Within 48 hours	Responding to Amazon's requests for information about A-to-z Guarantee claims, and approving return requests that require manual authorization (or replying with a reason if you don't approve). If you don't respond to a buyer's message reporting a delivery problem, or you neither approve nor deny a return request, the claim may be approved automatically
Within 72 hours	Answering the five-question quiz shown in a banner at the top of the Account Health page to sellers at risk of having seller-fulfilled listings deactivated due to Order Defect Rate or Cancellation Rate (if you pass, no plan of action is required, but you must still meet the targets; Help gives no deadline for the Late Shipment Rate quiz, so follow the on-screen instructions)
3 days	Grace period for addressing a critical violation (including reaching the repeat-violation limit)
Within 30 calendar days	Requesting reconsideration of an approved A-to-z Guarantee claim
Within 90 days	Requesting removal of feedback from Feedback Manager (from the date the feedback was submitted)

Daily checks (on days you ship orders or work on listings)

Weekly checks

Monthly checks

If your Cancellation Rate starts to rise, see Checking inventory management and order handling to reduce your pre-fulfillment cancel rate.

Turn the commitments in your plan of action into day-to-day procedures

If you were reinstated after submitting a plan of action, you will have described the root cause, the corrective actions, and the preventive measures. If you were reinstated because your score recovered, write down the actions you took on your violations in the same format. Then break each preventive measure down to "who does what, when, and what gets recorded," and build it into your operations. If what you wrote is abstract, rewrite it with the help of How to write the cause, corrective actions, and preventive measures in concrete terms.

Area	What to build into your procedures	Records to keep
Sourcing	Before doing business with a supplier, confirm that it is a real business, whether it is an authorized distributor, and whether it can provide invoices showing where the inventory came from, and set out in your contract how inventory subject to quality or authenticity complaints will be handled	Invoices, supplier contact details, and the date and details of your checks
Listing	Before listing, check rights issues, whether the product is restricted, and required safety information, and review the condition and price	Date checked and the person responsible
Shipping	Ship by the expected ship date and send a shipping confirmation using a trackable shipping method	Ship date and time, tracking number
Customer service	Aim to reply within 24 hours through Buyer-Seller Messaging. Don't include promotions, language that encourages positive reviews or feedback, or offers of incentives (and don't send more than one review request for the same order)	Message history

Keep invoices in a form that covers your sales volume over the past 365 days and your inventory on hand, so you're ready if you need to submit an appeal. Quotes, pro forma invoices, self-issued invoices, and editable formats such as .xlsx or .docx are not accepted, so save the original as a PDF or image each time you purchase inventory.

To give you an idea of what a procedure document might look like, here is a hypothetical example (not a real case).

[Pre-shipment check for seller-fulfilled orders (hypothetical example)]
Owner: Shipping staff (store manager on days they're absent)
Frequency: Twice every business day (morning and afternoon)
Steps: Sort unshipped orders by expected ship date, pack the orders with the nearest deadlines first, enter the tracking numbers, and send shipping confirmations. If the inventory for an order can't be found, report it to the manager rather than asking the buyer to cancel
Records: Log the time each shipping confirmation was sent and the tracking number in the shipping log, and compare it with the displayed Late Shipment Rate once a week

Once a month, use your records to confirm the procedures are actually being followed. If a procedure can't be sustained, replace it with another method that still achieves the goal you committed to in your plan of action (for example, preventing late shipments), and record the date and reason for the change. If you quietly stop doing it, the preventive measures you promised and how you actually operate will no longer match.

Rules to follow in day-to-day listing and customer service

A second suspension won't necessarily stem from the same area as the first, so make sure everyone involved in running the account knows the following rules.

• Contacting buyers: Use Buyer-Seller Messaging (メッセージ管理) only, and only when necessary, for example to complete an order. Proactive messages you initiate must be sent within 30 days of order completion and must not include thank-you-only messages, promotions, language encouraging positive reviews or feedback, or external links (except those necessary to complete the order, for example).
• Feedback and reviews: Feedback removal can only be requested through Feedback Manager (評価管理); asking Support to remove feedback through any other channel can result in your account being deactivated. Requesting reviews in exchange for an incentive, or asking buyers to change or remove a review, is also prohibited. Soliciting reviews in these ways and including package inserts that violate policy are given as examples of "Critical" violations, and even a single instance can lead to immediate suspension.
• Buyers' personal information: Use buyers' phone numbers only to fill out shipping labels, delete them after shipping, and never call buyers. You can review how your team handles this with Steps to review how you handle buyer information.
• Pricing: Prices, including shipping fees, are monitored, and misleading reference prices, prices significantly higher than recent selling prices, excessive shipping fees, and similar practices can lead to listings being removed, among other measures.
• Condition and product information: Listing an item under the wrong condition, such as listing a used item as new, is one example of a violation. Inspect returned items, and don't relist anything that shows signs of having been opened or used as "New."
• Intellectual property complaints: You can face enforcement action even if you weren't aware of an infringement. If you have a contractual relationship with the rights owner, you can ask them to retract the complaint, and if you believe the complaint is mistaken, reply to the notification with supporting evidence. If you're unsure, consider consulting a legal professional.

Manage the people, permissions, and contact details on your account

Weaknesses in how your account is run, such as being unreachable or sharing login credentials, can increase the risk of suspension. Two-Step Verification is required to access Seller Central. If several people run the account (only Professional sellers can set up user permissions), give each person their own login credentials and user permissions, and revoke access that's no longer needed. Help states that you are also responsible for the actions of any users you add.

During the grace period for a critical violation, an Account Health specialist may call you to offer support, and if your account is "At Risk," you don't address the violation, and Amazon can't reach you, your account may be suspended. Check the verification status in the Emergency Notifications widget under Notification Preferences; if it's red, verify it with a one-time code, and designate someone who can answer the phone.

If you change the address, bank account, phone number, or other details you originally registered, you may be asked for documents as part of a seller performance review. Help cautions against resubmitting before enough time has passed for the review, and against repeatedly sending inaccurate documents. Your registration information must always be kept current and accurate, so don't put off changes, and gather documents in one go — scans or photos of originals whose name and address match your registration information.

A medium-term goal: use the Account Health Assurance criteria as your benchmark

After reinstatement, setting your goal at an official standard one step above "stay green" makes it easier to gauge how much margin you have. Account Health Assurance (アカウント健全性アシュアランス), a free program launched on April 24, 2024, automatically enrolls Professional sellers who have maintained a rating of at least 250 for at least six months (with no more than 10 days below 250) and have a valid emergency contact phone number registered. Amazon explains that eligible sellers will not be suspended as long as they get in touch within 72 hours of being contacted to resolve an issue and are working with Amazon to resolve it.

The conditions for staying in the program include not falling below 250 for more than 10 consecutive days, having a verified emergency contact, and not repeatedly violating the same policy, and you can check your progress on the eligibility page. If Amazon determines that you're involved in fraudulent, deceptive, illegal, or otherwise harmful activity, you can lose eligibility and be suspended immediately, so think of this as a grace period you earn through day-to-day management, not a guarantee.

Professional sellers can reach a specialist through the Contact Us button on the Account Health page. We explain how to prepare in What to organize before contacting Account Health Support.

Mistakes that can lead to another suspension

• Opening another account to spread out your sales: You may maintain only one account per selling region, unless you have a legitimate business need and all of your accounts are in good standing. If even one account has a problem, all of your accounts can be suspended, and attempts to circumvent Amazon's systems can lead to suspension regardless of your score. Don't open another account to avoid a suspension.
• Altering invoices or other documents: Digitally altered invoices and invoices in editable formats are not accepted (removing pricing information is allowed). If deceptive activity is suspected, your account can be suspended regardless of your score.
• Asking buyers to request a cancellation when you're out of stock: The communication guidelines explicitly say not to do this.
• Expanding sales without implementing the preventive measures in your plan of action: If what you promised and how you actually operate don't match, it becomes harder to explain yourself the next time a problem comes up.

If you're suspended again anyway, see How to separate your previous improvements from the cause this time.

Frequently asked questions

Q. My account was reinstated, but I still can't list some products.

A. Account reinstatement and suspensions of individual listings may be handled separately. Work through items 2 to 6 in the checklist table in order, and submit an appeal or fix the listings as instructed.

Q. Even after I was notified of reinstatement, the balance in my payments report still hasn't been paid out.

A. Amazon doesn't officially state when funds will be disbursed. Check your balance and the status of any hold in the payments report, and direct any questions to the contact listed in the policy on releasing held funds. Help states that if, for example, a hold isn't lifted after an appeal, you can file a separate appeal with the same contact once 60 days have passed since the date of the hold.

Q. Can I have an outside agency handle work in Seller Central for me?

A. Even if you do, don't share your login credentials. Amazon advises limiting user permissions to individuals you know and trust, such as employees, so authorize an outside agency as a service provider instead, and limit the roles you delegate to what's necessary. Service provider access lasts 365 days and can be extended by reauthorizing. Get records of the work performed, and after the contract ends, confirm that no access remains.

Q. Can I stop my listings during periods when I can't keep up with shipping?

A. Rather than forcing yourself to take orders and ending up with more late shipments and cancellations, you can set your listings to inactive using the vacation settings under Settings → Account Settings (アカウント設定). Note, however, that FBA listings stay active, pending orders are not canceled automatically, and you'll still be charged the monthly subscription fee, so check that you have no pending orders before turning on vacation settings. Even while your listings are inactive, you must still process return requests and reply to buyer emails within 24 hours.

Q. Can I revise the preventive measures I promised in my plan of action partway through?

A. If you simply stop a procedure you can no longer sustain, the preventive measures you promised and how you actually operate will no longer match. Replace it with another method that still achieves the goal stated in your plan of action (for example, preventing late shipments), and keep a record of the date and reason for the change.

Summary

Reinstatement isn't the finish line — it's the start of running your business in a way that prevents another suspension.

• In the first week after reinstatement, take stock of remaining violations, inactive listings, issues shown on other screens, FBA inventory, funds, contact details, and seller information, in that order
• Understand each metric's calculation period and each response deadline, and assign them to daily, weekly, and monthly checks
• Even a violation removed after an approved reconsideration may count toward your repeat count within 180 days if you didn't dispute it, so be especially watchful for the same type of violation during the first six months
• Turn the preventive measures in your plan of action into procedures that specify who is responsible, how often, and what is recorded, keep them going, and record the reason whenever you change them
• Set up individual logins and permissions for each person, keep your emergency contact in order, and never leave yourself unreachable

If you can't make sense of a new notification, start by comparing the original text with your own records and confirming the facts one at a time.

*This article provides a general explanation. The appropriate response in individual cases depends on the circumstances.

Further reading

Reviewing your Amazon Account Health Rating: warnings and improvement priorities Read article → Amazon Seller Agreement and Code of Conduct warnings: identifying conduct deemed a policy violation and corrective steps Read article → Building an Amazon Plan of Action: root causes, corrective steps and prevention Read article →