Amazon FBA Polybag Requirements and Suffocation Warnings

1. Amazon FBA Polybag Requirements at a Glance

Amazon's Bagging requirements help page sets the rules. The short version:

• The bag fully encloses the item and is sealed with tape or an adhesive strip
• The bag is at least 1.5 mil thick (a mil is a thousandth of an inch)
• The bag sticks out no more than three inches past the product
• The bag is transparent so the barcode scans through it, or the barcode goes on the outside
• Bags with a 5-inch or wider opening, measured flat, carry a suffocation warning

If you're sending Q4 shipments over the next few weeks, get this right now. Bagging mistakes are cheap to avoid and annoying to fix after the units leave your hands.

2. When Amazon Requires a Poly Bag

Amazon says items must arrive bagged if any of these apply:

• Dust or leakage can damage the item
• The item has loose parts or sells as a set with other items
• The item is small, and a bag makes it easier to find
• The item contains scents
• The item contains adult content, which needs opaque bagging plus an external barcode

The help page also gives a decision tree. Fabric, clothing or anything that collects dust gets a bag. So does anything with multiple pieces, any item whose longest side is under 2 inches, and powders or pellets that spill when you shake them.

3. Product Types That Often Need Bagging

Amazon lists these product types as ones that can require bagging:

• Pellets, powders and granular products
• Plush items
• Apparel, fabric and textiles
• Small products and baby products
• Books, collectibles and heavily scented items
• Hazmat liquids and trigger spray bottles

Books have their own branch. Amazon's tree sends hardcovers over $60 and softcovers over $75 to bubble wrap instead of a bag. Books with cloth, leather or glossy covers, or with a loose CD or toy inside, get bagged. Hazmat liquids need a bag or heat shrink-wrap that encloses the whole product. For the hazmat side, read the Amazon hazmat review guide.

4. Bag Specs: Thickness, Seal and Overhang

The physical rules for the bag itself:

• Thickness: 1.5 mil minimum, per the bagging page.
• Seal: the bag is sealed shut with tape or its adhesive strip. An open flap fails.
• Overhang: no more than three inches past the product's dimensions.
• Visibility: clear enough to scan the barcode inside, or the barcode goes on the outside.

Heat sealing is an accepted alternative to bagging, as long as the barcode still scans and the seal protects the item from dust, damage or leaks. Liquids that leak through a bag or shrink wrap also need a cap seal.

5. The Suffocation Warning Rules

Any bag with an opening of 5 inches or more, measured flat, needs a suffocation warning printed on the bag or applied as a sticker. Amazon's bagging page spells out the wording:

"WARNING: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this plastic film away from babies and children. Do not use this bag in cribs, bed, carriages, or play pens. This bag is not a toy."

The warning goes in a prominent spot, in legible type that contrasts with the bag. Amazon sets minimum print sizes by the bag's total length plus width:

• 60 inches or more: 24 point
• 40 to 59 inches: 18 point
• 30 to 39 inches: 14 point
• Less than 29 inches: 10 point

The cheapest fix is buying bags with the warning pre-printed. Stickers work, but they add a step to every unit.

6. Barcodes and Bags After the 2026 Changes

Amazon ended commingling on March 31, 2026. If you're an arbitrage seller, you're not the Brand Representative, so every unit you send needs an FNSKU barcode. That includes bagged units.

Amazon's Product packaging requirements page says each unit needs an exterior barcode that a scanner can reach, and that you shouldn't put a barcode on a corner or curve. On a bagged item, put the FNSKU label flat on the outside of the bag. A unit that arrives without a required barcode counts as an inbound defect and loses reimbursement eligibility.

New to FNSKU labels? Start with how to print FNSKU labels and commingled vs stickered inventory.

7. Special Cases: Footwear, Adult and Expiration-Dated Items

A few categories have extra bagging rules on the packaging page:

• Footwear: no shoe material exposed. Use a shoe box or a poly bag with a suffocation warning.
• Adult products: opaque bagging or shrink wrap, with the barcode on the outside.
• Expiration-dated items: if the unit gets bagged, the expiration date label goes on the outside of the bag so the fulfillment center can read it at check-in.

Dated items also have their own rules for date format and label size, so check those before you bag them.

8. What Happens If You Get Bagging Wrong

Amazon lists the consequences on its own pages:

• Products that should arrive bagged and don't can trigger a preparation defect fee
• Bags missing a required suffocation warning may get re-bagged
• Inventory with non-compliant or unsafe packaging may be refused or disposed of at your expense, with no reimbursement

Amazon stopped US FBA prep and item labeling on January 1, 2026. Bagging and labeling are your job or your prep center's job, so build both into your per-unit costs.

9. Bag It Yourself or Pay a Prep Center

"Instead of shipping them to our house where we are going to pay sales tax, what we can do is ship them to a company that we call a prep center. When we ship our product to a prep center, we are going to pay them to get the product ready. Get the product ready to sell it to Amazon, right?"

This Weird Amazon FBA Strategy Will Make Me $1,000 This Week

Bagging at home works for small volume. You need a stock of 1.5 mil bags with pre-printed warnings, a label printer and a clean table. Once you're bagging hundreds of units a week, the time adds up fast.

"So, one thing that as a prep center you need to understand, right, is that if somebody actually hires a prep center, it's to have flexibility, right? Because they don't want to have the hard cost of having to actually hire people."

Choosing the Wrong Prep Center Destroys Your Business

Ask any prep center how it handles bagging and suffocation warnings before you send it product. Compare options in prep center vs DIY prep.

10. Polybag Checklist Before You Ship

Run each bagged unit through these checks:

• Does the item need a bag under Amazon's decision tree?
• Is the bag 1.5 mil or thicker and sealed shut?
• Does it stick out three inches or less past the product?
• Opening 5 inches or wider? Warning printed or stickered, in the right font size
• FNSKU flat on the outside and scannable

Want to see a full shipment prepped and sent? Sign up for the free Thursday training where Chris ships a real product from start to finish.

11. Next Steps

Get the rest of your prep right with these:

• Amazon FBA Box Requirements - box sizes, weights and labels for the shipment itself
• How to Print FNSKU Labels - the barcode every arbitrage unit needs now
• Amazon FBA Shipping Plan Tutorial - build the shipment in Send to Amazon
• Best Amazon FBA Prep Center - hand bagging and labeling to a pro
• How to Start Amazon FBA - the full startup guide