Amazon Fulfilment Centres in Germany: The Full List, FC Codes and What Sellers Must Know

What Is an Amazon Fulfilment Centre, and Why Should Sellers Care?

An Amazon Fulfilment Centre (FC) is the backbone of FBA. Once you send your stock there, Amazon handles everything: storage, quality checks, picking, packing, dispatch and returns processing. You no longer touch the physical product until the next replenishment order is due.

Every fulfilment centre has a unique three-letter code followed by a number, for example DTM1, FRA3 or LEJ5. The first three letters are based on IATA airport codes or regional codes: DTM refers to the Dortmund region, FRA to Frankfurt, LEJ to Leipzig and HAM to Hamburg. These codes appear in your FBA shipping plans, and they are not random. They tell you which part of Germany Amazon is sending your stock to.

The German network is part of a wider European one. Depending on whether you have activated Pan-European FBA, your stock either stays in Germany or moves to fulfilment centres in Poland, the Czech Republic, France or Spain. That has direct tax implications, which we cover further down.

Every Amazon Fulfilment Centre in Germany (Full List, as of 2025)

Amazon does not publish an official, regularly updated list of locations. The overview below is compiled from FBA shipping plans, publicly available business registrations and company registers (as of early 2025). New sites are added while others are consolidated or closed. Brieselang (BER3) in Brandenburg is a well-known example of a site that has been wound down.

North Rhine-Westphalia has the highest density: almost a quarter of all German FCs sit here. That is no coincidence. NRW combines motorway access, large population centres and strong purchasing power, and the Ruhr area, Cologne-Bonn and the Lower Rhine are ideally positioned logistically.

DACH Perspective: Amazon in Austria and What Switzerland Means

Austria has its own FBA site at the fulfilment centre in Großebersdorf near Vienna (VIE1). Sellers who explicitly sell on amazon.at and use FBA can send stock there. For niche products with low inventory, Amazon will nonetheless draw on German FCs to fulfil Austrian orders.

Switzerland has no Amazon fulfilment centre of its own. Products are dispatched from German or Austrian FCs to Switzerland, which extends delivery times and involves customs formalities. Sellers who specifically target Swiss customers should factor this into their delivery-time commitments and product pricing.

For DACH sellers who want to cover all three markets, Pan-European FBA with an explicitly restricted storage geography is worth considering. You can configure this in Seller Central under the FBA settings. Without that restriction, Amazon automatically distributes inventory to countries where you then have a tax presence, potentially without you realising it.

Inventory Placement: Where Does Your Stock Go, and Can You Influence It?

By default, Amazon uses distributed inventory placement. You send in 500 units and Amazon spreads them across multiple FCs throughout the country. This speeds up delivery times for customers, because there is always an FC nearby with stock. For you as a seller, it means creating multiple partial shipments to different destination addresses.

The Inventory Placement Service (IPS) is the paid alternative. You send everything to a single FC and Amazon handles internal distribution. This simplifies your process but costs per unit, roughly 0.30 to 1.30 euros depending on product size (as of 2024, check the current FBA rate card in Seller Central). IPS makes the most sense for high shipment volumes from a single production site.

Important: IPS is no guarantee that your stock will stay in one FC permanently. Amazon can move inventory internally when the network requires it. The service only simplifies your inbound process, not the long-term storage geography.

• Standard (free): multiple partial shipments to different FCs, with Amazon optimising the distribution.
• Inventory Placement Service (paid): one shipment, one FC, roughly 0.30 to 1.30 euros per unit.
• When IPS makes sense: high volumes from a single source, complex packaging, time-critical product launches.
• When IPS is not worth it: small quantities, low margins, straightforward logistics.

Warehouse Automation: Why Your Products Are Ready to Dispatch in Two Hours

Amazon runs its fulfilment centres on a hybrid model of human labour and robotics. The fulfilment centre in Winsen an der Luhe was the first in Germany with fully robotised warehousing: around 3,000 robots move 30,000 shelving units there, controlled by a central system that avoids collisions and optimises routes.

Particularly interesting is the principle of randomised storage. Amazon does not store products by category or brand, but purely by space optimisation. A kitchen sieve can sit right next to a bestselling novel. It sounds chaotic but is algorithmically deliberate: every shelf position is scanned and recorded when stock is put away, so the system always knows exactly where each unit is.

From goods-in to dispatch, efficient FCs often take just two hours. A robot brings the correct shelving unit to the packing station, a team member picks and scans the product, packs it, and the box goes straight onto the dispatch conveyor. This process is why Prime deliveries arrive on the same or next day.

For FBA sellers, this has a practical implication. After delivery to an FC, it takes 1 to 3 working days for inventory to be activated in Seller Central. During peak season, meaning Black Friday, Christmas and Prime Day, that window extends to 7 to 14 days. Sellers who send stock in late risk empty shelves at the busiest trading time of the year.

Pan-European FBA and the Tax Reality: What DACH Sellers Need to Know

Pan-European FBA lets Amazon store your goods cross-border across Europe, in Poland, the Czech Republic, France, Spain, Italy and other countries. The advantage is local delivery times for European customers, which lifts conversion rates and improves your chances of winning the Buy Box.

The downside: as soon as your goods are stored in another EU country, even if Amazon does this automatically and without your direct consent, a VAT establishment is created there. That means you must register for VAT in every affected country or use the OSS (One Stop Shop) procedure.

OSS significantly simplifies B2C VAT across the EU, replacing seven separate registrations with a single filing through the Federal Central Tax Office. However, OSS does not cover every case. B2B transactions, certain special cases and the warehousing element (when stock is held abroad without being sold) fall outside its scope.

Sellers who activate Pan-European FBA without understanding the tax implications risk back payments, fines and accounting problems. The recommendation is simple: always consult a tax adviser who specialises in Amazon before activating. Alternatively, the Central Europe FBA programme limits storage to Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, giving you less reach but considerably more manageable tax obligations.

• Pan-European FBA: storage in seven or more EU countries, fast delivery everywhere, but VAT registration or OSS required.
• Central Europe FBA: DE, PL and CZ only, a compromise between reach and tax complexity.
• OSS (One Stop Shop): simplifies B2C VAT, but does not replace all registration obligations.
• Germany only: possible, though Amazon may charge fees if Pan-EU options are active on your account.

What Happens to Returns, and What Do They Really Cost You?

Returns are not processed at the same fulfilment centre as the outgoing goods. Amazon operates its own returns centres that assess and categorise incoming returns. Products that meet the quality standard go back into active inventory, often at a different FC than before.

Products that can no longer be sold as new are either sent back to you for a fee, sold through Amazon liquidation programmes, or disposed of. Check the disposable-inventory report in Seller Central regularly to keep track.

Long-term storage fees apply once products have been in an FC for more than 365 days, regardless of whether they are new stock or returns. Sellers who do not actively manage their inventory will eventually pay more in storage fees than the product earns. That is particularly true for seasonal products that are forgotten in the warehouse after the peak period.

Five Practical Strategy Tips for FBA Sellers on Fulfilment Centres

Knowledge of the FC network is not merely a technical curiosity. It has a direct impact on your FBA performance, storage costs and your ability to react when capacity is tight.

1. Set inbound deadlines for seasonal goods. Aim for at least four weeks before peak events. During busy periods, check-in times can rise to as much as two weeks, and sellers who send stock in late will have empty inventory at the most important trading time.
2. Evaluate the FC codes in your shipping plans. Which FCs does Amazon regularly assign to you? If your products always go to Leipzig and Bad Hersfeld, you are well covered for eastern Germany and Hesse, but less so for Hamburg or Munich.
3. Test the Inventory Placement Service. Run a 60-day test for a product with high shipment volume and compare the IPS fee against the time you save on shipment planning and logistics. The break-even point is often around 300 to 500 units per shipment, depending on your process costs.
4. Keep inventory spread across multiple FCs. If all your stock ends up in a single FC and that site hits technical problems, you are completely out of the market. Distributed inventory buffers this risk, and Amazon usually handles it automatically, but check it actively.
5. Manage Pan-EU deliberately. Use the storage preferences in Seller Central. If you are only registered for VAT in Germany, switch off Pan-European FBA rather than waiting until the tax authority comes knocking.

Frequently Asked Questions