Inventory Turnover › Amazon
Amazon Inventory Turnover: Multi-Year 10-K History
Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) turned its inventory 9.8x in fiscal 2025 (year ended December 31, 2025), up from 9.0x in FY23. That is faster than Walmart's 9.2x but well short of Costco's 13.0x, and it reflects a first-party retail and fulfilment operation rather than a narrow-SKU warehouse. All figures below are from the company 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR.
Quick answer: Amazon's fiscal 2025 and 2024 10-K inventory turnover ratio
Fiscal 2025 (10-K)
9.8x for the year ended December 31, 2025. $356.4B cost of sales over roughly $36.27B average inventory ($34.21B opening, $38.33B closing). 9.3x on a closing-inventory basis.
Fiscal 2024 (10-K)
9.7x for the year ended December 31, 2024. $326.3B cost of sales over roughly $33.77B average inventory.
Turnover = cost of sales / average inventory (mean of opening and closing balance-sheet inventory). Figures taken from Amazon's 10-K filings on SEC EDGAR (CIK 0001018724), verified July 2026.
FY22 - FY25 turnover history
| Fiscal Year | Cost of sales | Inv (start) | Inv (end) | Turnover |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FY22 (ended Dec 2022) | $288.8B | $32.64B | $34.41B | 8.6x |
| FY23 (ended Dec 2023) | $304.7B | $34.41B | $33.32B | 9.0x |
| FY24 (ended Dec 2024) | $326.3B | $33.32B | $34.21B | 9.7x |
| FY25 (ended Dec 2025) | $356.4B | $34.21B | $38.33B | 9.8x |
FY22 (ended Dec 2022): Inventory built through the post-COVID demand swing; turnover sat at a cycle low.
FY23 (ended Dec 2023): Fulfilment-network regionalisation cut inventory while cost of sales grew, lifting turnover.
FY24 (ended Dec 2024): Inventory edged up to support demand, but cost of sales grew faster on lower per-unit fulfilment cost.
FY25 (ended Dec 2025): Cost of sales rose ~9% on continued sales growth; average inventory grew more slowly, holding turnover at a multi-year high.
Source: Amazon.com, Inc. 10-K filings, fiscal years 2022-2025 (CIK 0001018724). Cost of sales was $288.8B (FY22), $304.7B (FY23), $326.3B (FY24) and $356.4B (FY25); inventory was $32.64B, $34.41B, $33.32B, $34.21B and $38.33B at each year-end from Dec 2021 through Dec 2025. Turnover = cost of sales divided by average inventory (opening plus closing divided by 2). Amazon filings index.
Why Amazon's turnover reads the way it does
1. Most units never touch Amazon's balance sheet
More than half of the units sold on Amazon come from third-party marketplace sellers who own their own stock. Those sales flow through Amazon's platform without ever appearing in the inventory line, so the turnover ratio only measures the first-party goods Amazon actually buys and holds. A pure marketplace has no inventory at all; Amazon is a hybrid, and the ratio reflects only the owned half.
2. Cost of sales carries the shipping bill
Amazon's cost of sales is not a pure merchandise-cost figure. It includes inbound and outbound shipping, sortation and delivery-centre costs where Amazon is the carrier, and digital media content costs recorded gross. That loads the numerator, lifting the computed turnover above what a merchandise-cost-only figure would show. Comparisons with a conventional retailer's merchandise COGS are not perfectly like-for-like.
3. AWS and services sit outside the inventory picture
Amazon Web Services and other services carry essentially no merchandise inventory. They add to revenue and cost of sales but not to the inventory denominator, so they do not distort the ratio in the way a large physical-goods segment would. The turnover here is a read on Amazon's retail and fulfilment engine, not its cloud business.
Amazon vs Walmart vs Costco
On the FY25 10-Ks, the three US retail giants line up as Costco 13.0x, Amazon 9.8x, Walmart 9.2x. Amazon sits in the middle, but the three are not measuring the same thing. Costco runs roughly 4,000 SKUs per warehouse on vendor-shipped pallets, which is why it turns fastest. Walmart carries a full 120,000+ SKU supercentre assortment and uses LIFO, so adding back its LIFO reserve would trim its turnover further. Amazon uses FIFO and its ratio is lifted by the shipping costs inside cost of sales and depressed by nothing on the marketplace side.
The practical takeaway for benchmarking: read Amazon's turnover as a first-party fulfilment metric, not a store-velocity number. If you run a physical store, Walmart, Target or a sector peer is the more actionable comparison; Amazon's figure is informative for the economics of an owned-inventory e-commerce operation.
Frequently asked questions
What is Amazon's inventory turnover ratio in fiscal 2025?
Amazon turned its inventory 9.8x in fiscal 2025, the year ended December 31, 2025. That is $356.4B of cost of sales divided by roughly $36.27B average inventory (the mean of the $34.21B opening and $38.33B closing balances) from its 10-K. On a simpler closing-inventory basis the ratio is 9.3x. Either way Amazon turns faster than Walmart (9.2x) but well below warehouse-club Costco (13.0x).
How is Amazon's inventory turnover calculated from the 10-K?
Divide cost of sales by average inventory, where average inventory is the mean of the opening and closing inventory balances on the consolidated balance sheet. Both figures come straight from Amazon's 10-K on SEC EDGAR (CIK 0001018724). Amazon's cost of sales was $356.4B in FY2025; inventory was $34.21B at the start of the year and $38.33B at the end, giving roughly $36.27B average and a 9.8x ratio.
Why isn't Amazon's inventory turnover much higher given its scale?
Two structural reasons pull in opposite directions. First, more than half of Amazon's unit sales are third-party marketplace items that Amazon never owns; those units generate revenue without ever sitting in the inventory denominator, which flatters the ratio. Second, Amazon's cost of sales includes shipping and fulfilment costs, not just the purchase price of goods, which inflates the numerator relative to a pure merchandise-cost figure. The net result is a mid-single-to-high-single-digit ratio that looks modest for a company its size, but reflects a first-party retail and fulfilment operation rather than a narrow-SKU warehouse model.
Does Amazon's inventory turnover include AWS?
No. Amazon Web Services is a services business with essentially no merchandise inventory, so it does not affect the inventory denominator. Its costs sit in cost of sales and other operating lines, but the inventory turnover ratio here reflects Amazon's first-party product and fulfilment operation, not its cloud segment.
Does Amazon use LIFO or FIFO?
Amazon values inventory at the lower of cost and net realisable value using the FIFO method, and reduces it for estimated obsolescence. Because Amazon does not use LIFO, there is no LIFO reserve to add back, so its reported turnover is directly comparable on an inventory basis with other FIFO retailers (unlike Walmart or Costco, which use LIFO).