Operator glossary
Digital services fee (DST pass-through)
Amazon passing national digital-services taxes back to sellers — a percentage surcharge on fees for sellers based in or selling into certain countries — the line item that appeared in 2024 without a vote.
Several countries levy digital services taxes on marketplace revenue; since 2024 Amazon passes these through as a digital services fee — a percentage applied to selling fees (referral, FBA) based on the seller's establishment country and/or marketplace (UK, France, Italy, Spain, Canada among them, at low-single-digit rates).
US-based sellers on Amazon.com mostly do not see it; cross-border sellers see it stack quietly onto fee lines. It belongs in the unit-economics model for affected lanes, and in the settlement-report reconciliation — one more reason bookkeeping reads settlements, not dashboards.
The numbers
- Mechanism: % surcharge on selling fees tied to seller establishment country / marketplace (UK, FR, IT, ES, CA...).
- Introduced as pass-through in 2024; visible in settlement fee lines, low single digits.
Related terms