Amazon's Third-Party Testing Requirement: Which Products Need TIC Verification, and What to Do When the Notice Arrives

For years the way to answer an Amazon safety request was to upload the test report. That route is closed. For a growing list of categories, Amazon now takes compliance results only from a testing, inspection and certification provider it has approved, and a seller who still holds a valid report has to put it through one of them to keep the listing live.

This is the process as Amazon describes it, the categories it has named so far and when each came in, the one deadline that decides whether a listing stays up, what sellers report happening in practice, and how to appeal.

Amazon's own summary: "Products in certain categories must be verified through our testing, inspection, and certification process to remain buyable to customers. This applies to categories including dietary supplements, children's toys, and e-mobility products."

The change that catches most sellers is the next sentence: "Compliance results must come directly from an approved third-party testing, inspection, and certification provider. You're no longer able to upload these documents yourself. Testing typically takes 30 days once your provider receives samples, so start early."

So there are two routes, and both run through a provider. A product with no current test report needs testing, which takes about a month once samples arrive. A product that already has one can have that report verified by a provider rather than tested again; Amazon's pressure washer notice says existing test documents can be submitted for verification or new testing arranged. Either way, Amazon hears from the provider, not from the seller.

Children's toys first. Amazon's announcement to sellers: "Starting September 3, 2025, all children's toys will require annual testing or document verification from an approved Testing, Inspection, and Certification (TIC) organization," in the US and Canada stores. Annual is the word to notice: a toy is not verified once, it is verified every year.

Pressure washers followed: "Beginning April 30, 2026, all pressure washers will require third-party testing, inspection, and certification services to verify compliance with safety standards." Dietary supplements and e-mobility products are the other two categories Amazon names in its process summary. The list is Amazon's and it is described as including these, not limited to them, so a seller in any category with a safety standard behind it should expect a notice at some point.

The notice arrives as a compliance notification, and the affected listings, deadlines and requirements appear in the Account Health dashboard. For toys, Amazon said sellers would be notified within 30 days of the change with the affected ASINs and a date by which the documents had to be provided.

"After you receive a compliance notification, follow these steps: Go to Account Health. Click Policy Compliance. Choose Food and Product Safety Issues. Click Submit for the affected product. Verify Your Product. Choose a testing, inspection, and certification provider and select Request Lab Service."

Then the deadline: "Submit the request for lab service by the address issue date included in the request email you receive from us to avoid any impact on your listings. Your selected provider will contact you within two business days with next steps."

Read that carefully, because it is the date that matters. The listing is protected by requesting the lab service in time, not by finishing the testing in time. Testing takes about 30 days after samples arrive; the request has to be in by the date in the email. A seller who waits for the report before doing anything in Account Health has misread the deadline.

The toy announcement drew hundreds of replies, and the same questions run through them: paying a provider to verify a report the seller already paid a lab for; discontinued and collectable toys that cannot be retested; toys sold under a shared ASIN by several sellers; and the timing, which landed before the holiday season.

Two reported experiences are worth knowing before the notice arrives. One seller wrote that a listing was deactivated on the day the notification came, weeks before the deadline it stated. Another wrote that the promised notification never arrived, leaving no route to submit valid reports. Both are individual reports on the forum, answered by Amazon staff asking for case details, and neither is Amazon's stated policy. They are the reason to act on the first day rather than the last, and to keep a case open with the case ID to hand, which seller support cases that get resolved covers.

Amazon gives a route for a requirement that does not apply, for instance a product that is not a children's toy under the definition, or one already verified this year: "To appeal a compliance requirement, take the following steps: Go to Account Health. Click Manage Your Compliance. Select Add or Appeal Compliance. Choose Appeal Request. Submit your reason and supporting details."

An appeal is a reasoned case with evidence, not a complaint. State why the requirement does not apply, attach what proves it, and keep the lab service request in hand in case the appeal is refused, because the address issue date does not move while the appeal is read.

A list of every product in a named category, with its current test report, the standard it was tested to, the lab and the date. For toys, the date decides when the annual verification falls due. Samples set aside for testing, so a request does not wait on stock. And the insurance in place: from 2 November 2026 sellers in the safety-enhanced categories, which include children's products, need commercial liability cover whatever their sales, set out in insurance and company structure for Amazon sellers.

A listing that goes inactive for compliance is a listing reinstatement job as well as a testing job, and account health and getting reinstated sets out how the two connect. Before entering a category at all, the standards it carries belong in the decision, which is where finding a product to sell puts them.

Our marketplace compliance service keeps the register of products, standards and report dates, watches Account Health for the notices, gets the lab service request in by the date in the email and runs the provider process to the end. When a listing has already gone inactive, listing reinstatement is the same work under a deadline.