eBay UK Fees for Resellers

eBay UK fees at a glance: private vs business

Private sellers: what is free and what isn't

eBay's private fees page says: "You won't pay final value fees or regulatory operating fees when your items sell." The page shows "last updated 1 October 2024", but the official pages we read don't state when free selling began.

What a private seller can still pay:

• Listings above the allowance: 300 a month are free, then 35p each. Automatic relists don't use the allowance; manual relists do.
• A Shop: £19.99 a month for 100 extra free listings.
• Sales abroad: 3% international fee on delivery outside the UK.
• Upgrades: subtitle £2, Gallery Plus £2.50 (free in Clothes, Shoes & Accessories), reserve 4% of the reserve up to £150.

Decision rule: if you list close to 300 items a month, use automatic relist instead of ending and re-creating listings. The per-listing charge itself — where else it applies, and how free allowances burn down — is defined in insertion fee.

The Buyer Protection fee buyers pay

When someone buys from a UK-based private seller, eBay adds a Buyer Protection fee. It isn't charged on purchases from business sellers or from private sellers based outside the UK, and it doesn't apply to Cars, Motorcycles & Vehicles, Classified Ads or Property.

eBay says the fee is included in the item price buyers see, so the price on the buyer's view of your listing is higher than the one you set. A full refund returns the fee to the buyer; a partial refund returns a prorated share.

Older articles may quote a different fixed amount; the help page shows £0.10 at the time of writing (September 2026) and doesn't say when it changed. How buyer-paid fees work on Vinted and OLX is covered in who pays the buyer protection fee.

Business sellers: Shop packages and listing fees

Without a Shop, a business account gets no free listings, so every listing costs 30p from the first one.

Decision rule: the £27 Basic Shop pays for itself on listing fees once you list more than 90 fixed price items a month (90 × 30p = £27). Below that, no Shop is cheaper on listing fees alone.

Business final value fees by category

eBay charges the rate on "the total amount of the sale (which includes the item price, postage, and any applicable taxes)", then adds the per-order fee. Why that base matters is explained in does the final value fee include shipping.

The thresholds don't work the same way. For bags and jewellery, the lower rate applies only to "the portion of the total amount of the sale above" the threshold. For trainers, an item price of £100 or more moves the whole sale to 7%, which makes £99 an expensive price.

Regulatory operating and international fees

Every business sale also pays a 0.35% regulatory operating fee on the total sale. Selling to buyers outside the UK adds an international fee for UK-registered business sellers: 1.05% to the Eurozone and Northern Europe, 1.8% to the US and Canada, 2.0% elsewhere.

Performance moves the rate too: +6 percentage points for a Below Standard seller level, +4 for a very high "item not as described" rate in a category, and 10% off the variable fee with Top-rated Premium Service.

Worked examples: £40 jacket, £150 trainers, £900 bag

Each example assumes buyer-paid postage (£4, or £10 for the bag). Business fees exclude VAT.

Business fees come out of your payout; the Buyer Protection fee is added to what the buyer pays. To run your own prices across marketplaces, use the marketplace fee calculator. Its eBay UK business preset is a flat 12.25% plus £0.40, so it skips the £0.30 fee on orders of £10 or less, the 7% trainers rate and the bags split.

reva doesn't cover eBay. When fees take this much, your buying price is the other lever: reva's Scout reads Vinted, OLX and Allegro Lokalnie listings and estimates which are priced below their market.

When a reseller must switch to business

eBay's fee pages don't say when you count as a business, and account type isn't a setting you pick for the lower bill. If you buy stock to resell, ask an accountant or adviser; this is general information, not legal or tax advice. What other marketplaces say about the line is in private vs business seller.

What the switch does on eBay UK:

• Listings that sell after the change pay business fees, including ones created as a private seller
• Buyers stop paying the Buyer Protection fee
• The 300 free private listings go; without a Shop every listing costs 30p
• Fees are shown excluding VAT

So reprice live listings before you switch. For clothes on orders over £10, the fee is 12.25% of the total sale (11.9% plus 0.35%) plus £0.40:

Example: as a private seller, a jacket at £40 with £4 buyer-paid postage leaves you £40 after the label. As a business, (£40 + £4 + £0.40) ÷ 0.8775 = £50.60 total, so an item price of about £46.60 (before any VAT on fees). Your buyer's price moves less than yours: they saw £42.30 on the private listing, with the Buyer Protection fee included, and now see £46.60.

If you are an EEA resident, eBay.de's free private selling works differently: see eBay Germany fees.