How Much Does eBay Take From a Sale? The 2026 Fees, Line by Line

The short answer: on most sales, eBay takes 13.6% of everything the buyer pays, including shipping, plus $0.40 per order. On a $50 item with $8 shipping, that is $8.29 gone before you have bought a label.

The longer answer matters because the 13.6% is only the headline number. Below is every fee that can touch an eBay sale in 2026, what it applies to, and three worked examples from a $8 book to a $100 jacket. If you only want the number for your own item, the eBay fee calculator does the maths live.

Fees quoted here are eBay's published US rates for most categories as of October 2026. eBay changes them roughly once a year, usually in February. Check your own seller account for category-specific rates.

The Final Value Fee: 13.6% of the total

This is the one that counts. When an item sells, eBay charges a percentage of the total amount the buyer paid: item price, plus the shipping you charged, plus sales tax in most states. The standard rate is 13.6%, up from 13.25% in February 2025.

Two things catch new sellers:

• It is charged on shipping too. If you charge $8 shipping, eBay takes 13.6% of that $8 as well. Sellers who offer "free" shipping and fold the cost into the price pay the same fee on the same money, but the listing ranks better in search.
• Payment processing is inside it. Since eBay moved to Managed Payments there is no separate PayPal cut. The 13.6% is the whole percentage fee.

A handful of categories are different. Musical instruments, heavy equipment and commercial vehicles sit around 6.35%. Books, movies and music are a little higher than standard at about 14.6%. Everything most resellers list, from clothing to electronics to collectibles, is at 13.6%.

The per-order fee: $0.40

On top of the percentage, every order carries a fixed fee: $0.40, or $0.30 if the total order is $10 or less. It is small, but on a $6 sale it is a bigger share of your payout than the 13.6% is.

Insertion fees: free until you list 250 a month

Listing an item costs nothing for your first 250 listings each month. After that, each listing costs $0.35 whether it sells or not. Store subscribers get far more free listings: a Basic store includes 1,000 a month, Premium 10,000, Anchor 25,000. If you list more than 250 items a month and do not have a store, you are paying insertion fees you could avoid.

Promoted Listings: optional, 2% to 20%

Promoted Listings Standard is an ad fee you set yourself, typically between 2% and 20% of the sale price. It is charged only when a buyer clicks your promoted listing and buys within 30 days, and it stacks on top of the final value fee. A 5% ad rate turns your effective percentage into roughly 18.6%. Plenty of sellers run it; just count it as a fee when you price.

What you do not pay

• No fee on unpaid orders. If a buyer never pays and the unpaid item case closes, the fees are credited back.
• No monthly fee unless you choose a store subscription.
• No separate payment processing fee.

Three worked examples

All three use the standard 13.6% rate and assume no promoted listing.

A $8 paperback, buyer pays $4 shipping

The book cost you $1 at a library sale, so you net about $5. Books are actually in the 14.6% bracket, which knocks another twelve cents off. This is why many book sellers lean on bulk and store subscriptions.

A $50 pair of jeans, buyer pays $8 shipping

You paid $6 for the jeans at a thrift store. Net profit about $35.71. Notice the payout is almost exactly the item price: shipping passed through, minus the fee eBay took on it.

A $100 jacket with free shipping

Free shipping means the label comes out of your side. At $20 cost, you clear about $56. Add a 5% promoted listing and it is $51.

The rule of thumb

For a standard-category item you will keep about 86% of the total order value, minus your shipping label, minus whatever you spend on promotion. If you want a one-line pricing check: take your target profit, add the item cost and the label, then divide by 0.86 and add $0.40. That is the price you need to list at.

Compared with the other platforms

eBay's 13.6% looks high next to Mercari's flat 10%, and low next to Poshmark's 20%. The comparison is less clean than that, because Poshmark's fee includes the shipping label and Mercari's includes payment processing. The fee comparator puts all three side by side at any price, and Poshmark's fees are explained here.

Tracking it so you do not have to

If you sell on eBay through Flippd, the sale price, the fees eBay actually charged and the shipping label come through automatically when an item sells, so the profit on each item is the real number rather than the estimate above. For sales you record by hand, the fee is calculated for you from the platform and price. Either way, at tax time the fees are already a line item.