Amazon quietly updated its testing, inspection, and certification process, and sellers in affected categories have a new workflow whether they're ready for it or not. The change, announced via a Seller Central notification from News_Amazon, is straightforward in principle and complicated in practice: compliance results must now come directly from an approved third-party testing, inspection, and certification provider. You're no longer able to upload the documents yourself.
The categories this applies to include dietary supplements, children's toys, and e-mobility products. If you sell in any of those, and you've historically gathered your own test reports and uploaded them to Seller Central, that path is closed.
What the New Process Looks Like
When you receive a compliance notification from Amazon, the new workflow runs through Account Health. You go to Account Health, click Policy Compliance, choose Food and Product Safety Issues, click Submit for the affected product, and then choose Verify Your Product. From there, you select a testing, inspection, and certification provider from Amazon's approved list and request lab service. The lab contacts you within two business days with next steps.
Amazon notes that testing typically takes 30 days once a provider receives samples. That 30-day figure is a baseline, not a guarantee, and it doesn't include the time between a compliance notice and the moment you get your samples to a lab. If you receive a compliance notice tied to a deadline, the clock on your response window starts at the notice date, not at the moment you find out about it. That distinction matters more than it sounds.
The appeal path is separate. If you need to appeal a compliance requirement, you go to Account Health, click Manage Your Compliance, select Add or Appeal Compliance, choose Appeal Request, and submit your reason and supporting details. The appeal route and the verification route are different flows, and mixing them up costs time.
Why Amazon Made This Change
The short answer is document fraud. Some sellers were submitting fabricated or altered compliance documents, and doing it well enough to pass basic review. Routing results directly from the testing lab to Amazon cuts that vector entirely. Amazon gets the data from the source, not from the seller who may have a financial interest in what that data says.
From a seller standpoint, this introduces a coordination layer that didn't exist before. The lab now has to successfully transmit results to Amazon, Amazon has to receive and match them to the right ASIN and account, and when something breaks in that chain, your listing is at risk. You no longer have a document you uploaded to point to as proof of submission. You have a conversation with a lab about whether they sent something to Amazon.
The Practical Problem: When the Chain Breaks
The coordination risk is real. If your lab submits results and Amazon doesn't receive them, or receives them with a typo in an ASIN or account identifier, there's no clean resolution path. The lab will confirm they sent everything, and Amazon's system won't show a completed verification.
Your listing may be suppressed while both sides sort out what happened, and you're the one in the middle with no document to point to.
The way to manage this is documentation. Before your lab submits anything to Amazon, get written confirmation of the transmission method, the date, and the ASIN and account identifiers they're submitting against. After submission, follow up with the lab and check your Account Health dashboard within a few days to confirm the verification landed. If it hasn't, you have a paper trail to work from when you open a case with Seller Support.
You should also check your list of approved providers carefully. Amazon maintains a list of accepted TIC providers, and labs that aren't on it can't submit results directly to Amazon regardless of their accreditation. If you have an existing relationship with a testing lab you've used for years, confirm that they're on Amazon's approved list before you start a new compliance cycle with them. Finding out your lab isn't approved after samples are already submitted is the kind of delay that doesn't show up in anyone's 30-day estimate.
What to Do If You're in an Affected Category
If you haven't received a compliance notice yet and you sell supplements, children's toys, or e-mobility products, it's worth doing a proactive audit of your compliance status in Account Health now. A compliance issue you discover yourself is easier to manage than one Amazon discovers for you. Check which ASINs have active verifications, which have expiring documents, and whether your current testing labs are on Amazon's approved provider list. You can read more about how we approach Amazon account health and compliance as part of broader brand management.
If you've already received a compliance notice, don't wait on it. The 30-day testing timeline plus shipping time for samples means a delayed start translates directly into time at risk for your listing. Get samples to an approved provider as quickly as possible and keep your own records of every step in the process.
If your products are in categories that have historically required compliance documentation but aren't in the three explicitly named categories, watch for Seller Central announcements over the next few weeks. Amazon tends to roll compliance changes out in phases, and the initial announcement naming supplements, toys, and e-mobility is likely not the final scope.
If you want help auditing your compliance exposure across your catalog, or you've already hit a problem with the new workflow, schedule a call with the team and we'll help you work through it.