Amazon said on Thursday evening that it received about $600 million in tariff refunds in the second quarter and will automatically return money to some customers in limited cases. The disclosure gives the clearest sign yet of how the company is handling tariff costs that had been built into some prices across its store.
Brian Olsavsky, Amazon's finance chief, said the company is participating in the tariff refund process and that its teams worked to avoid those charges by forward-buying and pre-positioning inventory. He said Amazon is not the importer of record for most items sold in its store, which limits how much of the refund pool can be tied directly to shoppers.
That is why the company says only a narrow set of customers will get automatic reimbursements. Amazon said it has identified limited circumstances where it can trace specific import charges passed on to buyers, and in those cases it will contact affected customers and issue refunds without requiring claims. Where it cannot make that direct link, it says the money will be used in ways that support lower prices.
The disclosure lands after months of silence over whether Amazon would seek refunds on tariffs imposed under emergency powers. In January, Andy Jassy said tariffs were already starting to push up prices on Amazon's platform, with some sellers absorbing the extra cost and others passing it through to consumers. By May, consumers had filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Seattle arguing they were owed refunds for paying tariff-inflated prices, and the suit alleged Amazon was not seeking refunds in order to curry favor with Donald Trump.
Amazon's own numbers show why the answer is partial. More than 60% of goods sold on its marketplace come from outside sellers, and many of those third-party merchants applied for their own refunds after raising prices because of tariffs. Olsavsky said that when Amazon did face higher costs, it largely absorbed them rather than passing them on, but he did not give a count for how many customers would be included in the automatic reimbursement process. That leaves the next step focused less on the size of the refund pool than on which purchases Amazon can actually trace to a tariff charge.
