The Amazon Influencer Program is an extension of Amazon Associates for social media creators. You apply with a qualifying YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest or Facebook account, Amazon assesses it against qualitative and quantitative thresholds it does not publish, and accepted creators get a storefront page on Amazon plus commission on qualifying purchases from their links, storefront and any shoppable content Amazon chooses to feature. Joining also binds you to the Associates Operating Agreement, including its required disclosure statement.
Who can join, and where it runs
Amazon's September 2026 explainer, How to join the Amazon Influencer Program, says creators apply with a qualifying TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest or Facebook account and are evaluated on factors including content quality, engagement rate and follower count, with those who miss out encouraged to reapply later. The Influencer Program Policy adds that applicants must meet Amazon's qualitative and quantitative thresholds and grant requests to access data about their social media presence. Neither document names a follower minimum, so treat any figure you see quoted elsewhere as unofficial.
Amazon's own pages disagree on where the program runs. An Associates Central answer on availability outside the US lists four marketplaces: the US, UK, India and Canada. The September 2026 explainer says the program is available in more than 20 countries and names them, including Australia, Germany, Japan, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. The newer article is more likely to be current, but each marketplace runs its own version, so confirm on your local Associates Central before you plan around it.
Suitability rules apply before follower counts do. The Participation Requirements in the same policy document list unsuitable sites, including those that promote or contain sexually explicit material, violence, deceptive or hateful material, illegal activity or content directed at children, and they bar Amazon trademarks or misspellings of them in any username, handle or other social media identifier.
Application and storefront checklist
- Confirm the program runs in your Amazon marketplace, then start from its influencer sign-up page.
- Choose the social account that best shows your product recommendations, and expect to grant Amazon access to data about it.
- Check that account against the suitability list and remove any Amazon trademark from your handle.
- If you are already an Associate, Amazon's help on joining as an existing Associate says you can register with your current Associates account and Store ID instead of signing up again.
- Once accepted, set your storefront's vanity URL, which takes the form amazon.com/shop/ followed by your handle on the US site, and group products into Idea Lists.
- Upload photos and videos through Creator Hub. Amazon's help on uploading storefront videos says that after 10 videos are approved by moderation and you have signed up for onsite commissions, shoppers may also find your videos on product detail pages.
- Add a link-level disclosure beside every link and the required Associate statement where it is associated with your account, as set out in the compliance list below.
- Complete the tax interview for your main Store ID and again for any Onsite Store ID Amazon creates for you.
- Pick a payment method and note when commissions are paid.
- Re-read the Operating Agreement whenever Amazon notifies a change; the version current in October 2026 says it was updated on 15 October 2025.
Where the commission comes from
| Source | What triggers it | Tracked under | Watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Links you share | A customer clicks your product or SiteStripe link and buys within the session rules | Your regular Store ID | Under the Commission Income Statement, a session ends after 24 hours, at an order, or at a click on another Associate's link; items added to the cart count if ordered within 89 days |
| Storefront visits | A customer reaches your storefront through your link and buys | Your regular Store ID, with the session starting at the click to your page | The same session rules as other links |
| Onsite earnings | Amazon shows your Idea Lists, photos, videos or livestreams to shoppers already browsing, who click and buy | A separate Onsite Store ID, which may begin with onamz | Paid at onsite rates; needs its own tax and payment details; content must be published in that country |
| Amazon Live | Shoppers buy from the product carousel in your livestream | Your influencer account, using the Amazon Live Creator app | Livestreaming through the app requires program membership |
| Creator Connections, bounties and bonuses | Brand campaigns, eligible sign-ups or monthly targets that Amazon describes | The rules of each individual program | Each has its own terms, and Amazon can change or end special programs at any time |
| Creator Ads Boost | Amazon runs your linked content in its ads on social platforms after you are invited and agree | The Creator Ads Boost Program Policy | Amazon may share your handle and Store ID with the platform; you can opt out |
The Commission Income Statement in Amazon's policies says standard commission is a percentage of qualifying revenue, with the rates set out in its appendix and varying by category. Qualifying revenue excludes shipping, gift-wrapping, taxes, credits and similar charges, and purchases are disqualified if the order is cancelled or returned, if the customer arrived through an ad you bought on Amazon's trademarks, through a link displayed on a search engine, or through a redirecting link. The same statement says payment is made roughly 60 days after the end of the month in which commission was earned. Amazon's page on earning onsite commissions explains the separate Store ID.
The tax interview and payments
Amazon's help on completing the tax interview says the interview checks your taxpayer identification details against IRS records and must be completed and validated before you can be paid commission. For creators outside the US, Amazon's answer on why non-US Associates must provide tax information says the IRS requires it to withhold up to 30% from US referral commissions unless the Associate provides a completed W-8BEN with a valid treaty claim. Our guide to W-8BEN forms for non-US creators explains how that form works on another platform.
Because tax details do not transfer between Store IDs, an onsite earnings account needs its own interview. Whether withholding applies to you, and how commission is taxed where you live, depends on your residency and circumstances, so ask a tax adviser before relying on a treaty claim.
Compliance list from the agreement and policies
These points come from the Associates Program Operating Agreement, the Participation Requirements and the Influencer Program Policy. Breaking them can cost you commission or your account.
- Required statement: “As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases” must appear clearly and prominently, and Amazon's help on identifying yourself as an Associate says that for social media it must be associated with your account.
- Link-level disclosure: the same help page asks for a clear, conspicuous disclosure near each link, giving “(paid link)”, “#ad” and “#CommissionsEarned” as examples.
- Other relationships: if a brand also pays or gifts you for the same content, disclose that connection too; the Influencer Program Policy points to labels such as #Ad or #Sponsored.
- Talking about Amazon: beyond the required statement, no public comments about your agreement without written permission, and nothing implying Amazon sponsors or endorses you.
- Prices: show prices only through Amazon-served links or its product data tools, so leave prices out of captions you type yourself.
- Promotions: remove mentions of a limited-time deal as soon as it ends on Amazon.
- Accuracy: no inaccurate, overbroad or misleading claims about a product, Amazon, its policies or its prices.
- Offline and messaging: no promotion in printed material, ebooks, mailings or oral solicitation; links in emails, SMS and direct messages from your social accounts only where the recipient has opted in.
- Link handling: do not ask people to bookmark your links, do not use redirecting links and do not post your links on Amazon itself to promote them.
- Paid search and software: no ads bidding on Amazon trademarks, and no links inside browser extensions or other installed software.
Read the offline rule beside Amazon's description of the vanity URL as something you can promote verbally to followers: saying your storefront address in your online videos is what the help page describes, while printing it on flyers or in an ebook falls under the offline ban. If a use sits between the two, ask Associates support before relying on it.
Your local regulator may want more than Amazon does. In the UK, the ASA and CMA's influencers' guide names Amazon Associates links as affiliate marketing that needs a clear “Ad” label before the relevant content, and says a general note that some links might earn commission is not enough. In the US, the FTC's Disclosures 101 wants the disclosure placed with the endorsement and inside the video itself.
The licence you give Amazon
The Influencer Program Policy asks you to grant Amazon a non-exclusive, worldwide, fully paid-up, royalty-free licence, for the maximum duration of your intellectual property rights, to use, copy, adapt, translate, excerpt, reformat, distribute and display your name, photo, logo and other trademarks and the materials you provide. Amazon says it will not alter your marks beyond resizing or reformatting, the licence survives termination, and after you leave it will use commercially reasonable efforts to remove your marks from your influencer page. The same policy reserves Amazon's right to reject, remove or suspend your content and to place advertising on your page without paying you.
That is the perpetual, worldwide pattern our content usage rights checklist warns about in brand contracts. You cannot negotiate a standard program agreement, but you can decide what you upload: keep content you plan to license exclusively to a brand off your storefront, or check the brand deal first. Either side can end the Operating Agreement by written notice, which the agreement says takes effect 7 calendar days later.
If Amazon is one of several shopping programs you use, compare the rules side by side; our guides to the YouTube Shopping affiliate program and becoming a TikTok Shop affiliate cover the equivalents, and our brand ambassador guide explains how commission programs differ from ambassador deals.
Limitations of this guide
This guide reflects Amazon's US Associates Central help pages, Operating Agreement and policies, and its September 2026 explainer, as they read on 1 October 2026. Other marketplaces publish their own agreements, rates and features, and Amazon's pages already disagree on country availability, so check the documents for the marketplace you join. Commission rates and thresholds are deliberately left out because they change and vary by category.
Nothing here is legal or tax advice, and joining does not mean you will earn anything. Read the full agreement before applying, ask Associates support when a rule is unclear, and speak to a tax adviser about withholding, treaty claims and how commission is taxed where you live.