Amazon Poly Bag Requirements:
Which Products Need Them & How to Do It Right

Poly-bagging is the most common FBA prep requirement and the one sellers get wrong most often. It is also the requirement that changed the most in 2026 — Amazon no longer fixes your mistakes for you.

Before 2026 a missed poly bag was an annoyance: Amazon bagged it and billed you. Now it is a rejected shipment, or worse — an accepted shipment with damaged units you cannot claim for. That is why this guide goes into the detail it does.

Which Products Require a Poly Bag

Amazon requires poly-bagging when the unit could contaminate, shed, absorb or lose parts inside a fulfillment centre. In practice that means:

• Soft goods and textiles — apparel, bedding, plush toys, towels, fabric of any kind. This is the largest category by volume and the least negotiable.
• Products with loose parts — anything where a component can separate in transit: craft kits, hardware sets, board games with pieces.
• Multi-piece sets sold as one unit — if the customer must receive all pieces, the bag is what keeps them together.
• Items that could be soiled by handling — light-coloured goods, anything the customer would refuse if it arrived scuffed or dusty.
• Semi-liquid or powder products in containers that are not factory-sealed.
• Units whose retail packaging is not durable — thin cardboard sleeves, open-top boxes, anything that will not survive a conveyor.

The test we apply on the floor is simple: if the unit were thrown into a tote with forty other items and moved three times, would it arrive sellable? If the answer is no, it gets a bag.

Poly Bag Specifications

Requirement	Amazon specification
Thickness	Minimum 1.5 mil (0.0015 in)
Transparency	Must be transparent — the barcode has to scan through it
Seal	Fully sealed: heat-sealed, self-adhesive strip or taped closed
Suffocation warning	Required when the bag opening is 5 in (12.7 cm) or wider, measured flat
Excess material	Trim it — a bag much larger than the unit gets caught in equipment
Barcode	One scannable FNSKU per unit; all other barcodes covered

The 1.5 mil floor exists for a reason. Thinner film tears on the conveyor, and a torn bag is treated as no bag at all. If you are sourcing bags yourself, ask the supplier for the mil rating in writing — "standard" means nothing.

The Suffocation Warning — Exact Font Sizes

Any poly bag with an opening of 5 inches or more must carry a suffocation warning. This is not an Amazon invention; several US states mandate it independently. The wording:

The part most sellers miss is that the minimum font size scales with the bag. Add the bag's length and width, then use this table:

Length + width	Minimum font size
Under 29 in	10 point
30 – 39 in	14 point
40 – 49 in	18 point
60 in and over	24 point

If your bag falls between two bands, use the larger size — nobody was ever rejected for printing the warning too big.

Two further rules that catch people out: the warning must be printed or permanently affixed, not written on a peelable sticker that a handler can remove; and it must be legible against the bag, which in practice means dark text, not a faint watermark.

FNSKU Visibility Through the Bag

The FNSKU must scan while the unit is bagged. Three situations, three answers:

• Label on the product, clear bag over it — fine, as long as the film is not crinkled over the barcode. This is the cheapest option and what we default to.
• Bag is opaque, printed or coloured — the label goes on the outside of the bag.
• Product shifts inside the bag — if the unit can rotate and hide its own label, put the label on the bag. A barcode that scans on the bench but not in the tote is still a rejection.

Also make sure every other barcode is covered. A retail UPC left exposed next to an FNSKU is one of the most common causes of a unit being received against the wrong ASIN — and untangling that afterwards takes weeks.

The Five Rejections We See Most

1. Warning text too small for the bag. A 10-point warning on a 40-inch bag is technically a warning and technically non-compliant.
2. Bag not fully sealed. Folded over is not sealed. Taped at one corner is not sealed.
3. Barcode unreadable through wrinkled film. Passes on a flat desk, fails on a moving belt.
4. Old barcodes left visible. The scanner takes whichever code it sees first.
5. Bag far too large. Excess film wraps around rollers; the unit is pulled out and set aside.

Poly Bag, Shrink Wrap or Box?

They are not interchangeable, and choosing wrong costs you either money or units:

• Poly bag — soft goods, loose parts, anything needing contamination protection. Cheapest, fastest.
• Shrink wrap — multi-packs and sets where you want the pieces held tightly and visibly together. No suffocation warning needed, but no dust protection either.
• Box — fragile or sharp units, and anything that must pass a drop test. See our bubble wrap guide for what qualifies.

Doing It In-House vs Outsourcing

Since January 2026 this is a decision every US seller has to make. The honest arithmetic:

Bags themselves are cheap — a few cents each at volume. The cost is labour and rework. Bagging, labelling and checking a unit properly takes roughly a minute once you are practised. At 1,000 units a month that is around 17 hours, before you count sourcing bags, storing them, and the units you get wrong while learning which bag suits which product.

We poly-bag at $0.75 per unit, which includes the bag, sealing, the suffocation warning where required, and the compliance check. Whether that is cheaper than doing it yourself depends entirely on what your own hour is worth — but the rework risk sits with us, and since 2026 that risk is no longer trivial.

How QuickShipment Handles Poly-Bagging

Every unit that arrives at our Claymont, Delaware warehouse is assessed on receipt. For standard categories we do not need instructions from you — we apply the bag Amazon requires, the correct warning for the bag size, and place the FNSKU where it will actually scan.

If a product is borderline, we photograph it and ask before prepping rather than guessing. Our first-pass FBA acceptance rate is 99.8%, and prep is completed within 48 hours of arrival.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does every poly bag need a suffocation warning?
No. Only bags with an opening of 5 inches or more when laid flat. Small bags below that threshold do not need one — though adding it is never a compliance problem.

Can I use a printed sticker for the warning?
Only if it is permanently affixed and cannot be peeled off in handling. A printed bag is safer and cheaper at volume.

Does the bag need to be recyclable?
Amazon does not require it in the US, but several destination markets and retailers do. If you sell into the EU or UK as well, check those rules before you order 50,000 bags.

What if my product is already in retail packaging?
If that packaging is sealed, durable and shows a scannable FNSKU with no other barcodes visible, no bag is needed. Thin sleeves and open boxes still need bagging.

Who is liable if a unit is damaged because it was not bagged?
Since 1 January 2026, shipments that arrive unprepped are not eligible for Amazon reimbursement. The loss is yours.