Amazon India Settlement Reconciliation: Trace One Order Through Fees, Refunds and Tax Records

*Written by Rahul Bisht, Growithamazon.com. Last updated 11 November 2026. Rates and report layouts were checked against official sources on that date (listed under Sources).*

What Is Amazon India Settlement Reconciliation?

Amazon India settlement reconciliation means proving, order by order, that the money in your bank account equals what you sold, minus what Amazon was entitled to take. For every order ID you match the sale, referral fee, closing fee, weight handling fee, 18% GST on those fees, GST TCS, income-tax TDS, any refund, and the final payout. If the numbers do not tie, you have found a leak.

Most sellers treat the payout as "about right" and move on. A few rupees per order does not look like much until you multiply it by a thousand orders and a refund process nobody has audited.

The good news: you do not need an ERP or an accountant to start. You need one order, one report, and a clear idea of which deductions belong where. That is what this guide walks through.

The one-line formula to keep in your head:

Net payout = item price and shipping credits, minus Amazon fees, minus GST on those fees, minus TCS, minus TDS, plus or minus refunds and reimbursements.

Who This Guide Is For

• ●Sellers on Amazon.in (FBA, Easy Ship or Seller Flex) whose settlement never quite matches their sales report

• ●Founders and finance people who need clean numbers for GSTR filings and Form 26AS matching

• ●Anyone who has been told "it is all in the report" and could not find where

Table of Contents

• ●What Is Amazon India Settlement Reconciliation?

• ●Where the Data Lives in Seller Central

• ●Worked Example: One Order, From Sale to Payout

• ●What Each Deduction Really Means

• ●What Happens When the Order Is Refunded

• ●Where Refund Leaks Usually Hide

• ●Matching the Tax Records: TCS, TDS and GST on Fees

• ●A Monthly Reconciliation Checklist You Can Run in About an Hour

• ●How We Checked This Guide

• ●Frequently Asked Questions

Where the Data Lives in Seller Central

Everything you need sits under Payments in Seller Central. The trick is picking the right view for the job, because each one answers a different question.

Two Things That Changed in 2026

Amazon has been rolling out a new Payments report format since around March to May 2026, and it covers India. In the new layout the Date/Time column shows the date a transaction was posted, deferred and released transactions appear in one report, and there is a Transaction Release Date column. If your old Excel template keys off the old date logic, re-check it before you trust last quarter's numbers.

The payout rule is unchanged for standard accounts: an order becomes eligible for payout 7 days after delivery, and disbursements run every 7 days. So a sale on 1 November does not belong in the same payout as a sale on 8 November, even though both sit in your November sales report.

The Columns That Matter

Column names can differ slightly by report version, so confirm against your own download. In the India transaction report you will normally see these groups:

• ●Identifiers: date/time, settlement ID, type (order, refund, service fee and so on), order ID, SKU

• ●Money in: product sales, shipping credits, gift wrap credits, promotional rebates

• ●Tax columns: GST on the sale, TCS (CGST, SGST or IGST) and TDS

• ●Money out: selling fees (referral and closing), fulfilment fees, other transaction fees

• ●Total: the net amount for that line

Download one month as CSV and sort by order ID. Every reconciliation in this guide starts there.

Worked Example: One Order, From Sale to Payout

Let us trace a single order. The sale price is round and the fee amounts are assumed for illustration, so the arithmetic is easy to follow. Your real referral, closing and weight handling fees depend on category, price band and channel; take those from your own report and from Amazon's fees and pricing page. For a wider view of every cost on Amazon, see our 2026 fee breakdown.

Assumptions: an inter-state order, 18% GST included in the price, so the buyer pays ₹1,180 (taxable value ₹1,000, GST ₹180).

What Each Deduction Really Means

Not every rupee that leaves your payout is a cost. Here is what each deduction in the table above really is.

Steps 2 to 4 (₹180) Are Your Real Cost

These are the fees Amazon earns.

Step 5 (₹32.40) Is GST on Those Fees

Amazon issues you invoices for it, and as a registered seller you can usually claim it as input tax credit. It leaves your bank account now but comes back through GSTR-3B.

Step 6 (₹5) Is Not a Fee

It is tax Amazon collects at source under Section 52 of the CGST Act and deposits to the government on your behalf. It shows up as credit in your electronic cash ledger.

Step 7 (₹1) Is Not a Fee Either

It is income-tax TDS, and it shows up as credit in your Form 26AS and AIS. You offset it against your income tax.

The ₹180 of GST on the Sale Was Never Yours

It is collected from the buyer and goes into your GSTR-1 and GSTR-3B liability.

So on a ₹1,180 order the real economic cost of Amazon was ₹180, not the ₹218.40 that left your payout. The ₹32.40, ₹5 and ₹1 are recoverable if you file and match them properly. That is exactly why reconciliation matters: unmatched credits are money you never claimed.

How to Check the TCS and TDS Bases

TCS is charged on net taxable supplies (sales minus returns), while TDS is charged on gross sales. That is why, in a month with a lot of returns, your TDS credit can look high compared to your TCS credit. Amazon's own TDS column in your report is the final word on the base it used. If it shows zero, ask your CA whether the small-seller exemption applies to you before assuming an error.

What Happens When the Order Is Refunded

A refund does not delete the original order. It adds a second line to your report, usually with the same order ID and a different type, often in a later settlement period. That is why a month can look fine on sales and still pay out short.

Take the same ₹1,180 order and assume the buyer returns it in full. The fee treatment below is assumed for illustration. Here we assume Amazon reverses the referral fee and its GST, keeps the closing fee and weight handling fee, and charges no separate return fee. Your own schedule may differ, so verify each line against your refund rows.

Add the first settlement (+961.60) and the refund (−1,057.00) and the order leaves you −95.40. That is the ₹80 of fees Amazon kept, the ₹14.40 of GST on them, and the ₹1 of TDS, which is worked on gross sales and not undone by a return. TCS comes back because it is charged on net sales.

Where Refund Leaks Usually Hide

Four places account for most of the money that goes missing on returns.

Closing and Shipping Fees Kept on a Return

Check whether the fee was actually reversed, partly reversed or kept, against the fee schedule that applied on the order date.

Refunds in a Later Period

An October order refunded in November lands in the November statement. Match by order ID, not by month.

Returned Stock That Never Reaches You

If an FBA return is lost or comes back damaged, you may be owed a reimbursement. Our guide to Amazon FBA return fees explains what Amazon can and cannot charge on returns.

Reimbursement Lines You Never Matched

Reimbursements for lost or damaged inventory arrive as their own line type. If you have never filtered for them, start now.

A Practical Rule for Every Refund Line

For every refund line in your report, find the original sale by order ID. Then ask three questions. Was the referral fee returned? Was TCS reversed? Is there a reimbursement owed for stock that never came back?

Matching the Tax Records: TCS, TDS and GST on Fees

The settlement report tells you what Amazon deducted. Three government and Amazon records tell you whether you got credit for it. Each lives in a different place and runs on a different calendar.

GST TCS

Since 10 July 2024, e-commerce operators collect TCS at 0.5% in total on the net value of taxable supplies: 0.25% CGST plus 0.25% SGST for intra-state sales, or 0.5% IGST for inter-state sales. This came from Notification 15/2024-Central Tax, which halved the earlier total rate of 1% (0.5% CGST plus 0.5% SGST, or 1% IGST). You can read a summary of the change on Taxmann and Taxscan. Log in to the GST portal to check what was actually credited to you.

If your monthly TCS in the report and the credit on the portal disagree, the usual causes are a refund in a later period, a GSTR-8 filed late, or a state-code mismatch on the order.

Income-Tax TDS

Since 1 October 2024, TDS on e-commerce payments is 0.1% of gross sales, down from 1%. Under the old numbering it was Section 194-O of the Income-tax Act, 1961. From 1 April 2026 the same provision sits in Section 393(1), Table Sl. No. 8(v) of the Income-tax Act, 2025. Do not be surprised if your report, your CA's software and the portal use different section labels for the same deduction.

TDS credit appears only after Amazon files its TDS return and it is processed, so a short 26AS in the middle of the year is not automatically an error. Reconcile on the full financial year, and chase quarter by quarter if a number is missing.

Stale Rates Are the Most Common Mistake

Many blogs and even some accounting tools still quote 1% TCS and 1% TDS. If your reconciliation sheet uses those, every row will "fail" and you will waste hours looking for a leak that is only an old formula. Update the rates to 0.5% TCS (net) and 0.1% TDS (gross) first, then look for real differences.

GST on Amazon's Fees

This is the tax record sellers skip most often. Every fee Amazon charges carries 18% GST, and Amazon issues tax invoices for it. Download them from the Tax Document Library, total them for the month, and compare to the fee GST in your settlement report. If the two disagree, or the credit is missing in GSTR-2B, you are paying tax you may be entitled to claim.

A Monthly Reconciliation Checklist You Can Run in About an Hour

Once you have traced one order by hand, the monthly job is the same logic applied to the whole file.

Step 1: Download the Date Range Transaction Report

Pull the full month as CSV, and the matching Summary report for control totals.

Step 2: Fix the Rates First

Set TCS at 0.5% of net taxable value and TDS at 0.1% of gross sales in your sheet, so old rates do not create false errors.

Step 3: Sort by Order ID

Group each order's sale, fee, tax and refund lines together.

Step 4: Rebuild the Payout per Order

Item price and credits, minus fees, minus GST on fees, minus TCS, minus TDS, plus or minus refunds. Flag any order where your total differs from Amazon's by more than a rupee.

Step 5: Tie to the Bank

Add up the settlements for the period and match them to the Disbursements credits in your bank statement, allowing for the 7-day payout lag.

Step 6: Check Refunds and Returns

For every refund line, find the original sale, confirm the referral fee and TCS treatment, and note any returned stock that never arrived.

Step 7: Pull Fee Invoices

Take them from the Tax Document Library and compare their GST to the fee GST in your report.

Step 8: Compare TCS to the GST Portal and TDS to Form 26AS

Check TCS once GSTR-8 is filed, and TDS against Form 26AS at least every quarter.

Step 9: Log Every Unexplained Difference

Record the order ID, amount and reason, and raise a case with Seller Support for anything that is Amazon's error.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• ●Reconciling by calendar month when settlements run on their own cycle

• ●Treating TCS and TDS as fees and cutting them from your margin

• ●Using sales-report totals as the control instead of the payments report

• ●Forgetting that refunds can land a period or two after the sale

• ●Ignoring small per-order differences because each one "is only a few rupees"

• ●Working from an old report template after the 2026 format change

When to Hand It to a Specialist

If you run more than a few hundred orders a month, sell across FBA and Easy Ship, or have several GSTINs, doing this by hand gets expensive. Our Amazon account management service is the place to start if you want a team to own this, and our 60-point agency checklist shows what to ask for before you hire anyone.