Every product that crosses a border on its way to a shop stops at customs first. The tax charged there sets part of what the shop pays for it. When that tax goes up, someone along the chain has to carry it: the factory, the firm that brings the goods in, the store, or the shopper at the checkout.
For an investor, the hard part is timing, because tariff rules in the United States changed again and again in 2025 and 2026. Several changes came in a statement late on a Friday or over a weekend. A court later struck down the biggest set of them. The duties that replaced them now face a court challenge of their own. A retailer's results show what those changes cost only months later, so the share price has to guess in between.
The way to read a tariff is to follow the goods: who imports them, who sets the price, and which line of the retailer's accounts the extra cost lands on. Tokenized shares and perpetual contracts add one more thing to watch, because they keep trading when a tariff headline arrives while the stock market is closed.
Amazon is a useful case, because its store mixes goods it buys and resells with goods that other sellers ship in themselves. On BloFin, you can follow Amazon's share with crypto in two ways. Tokenized Amazon (AMZNX) trades on the AMZNX/USDT Spot pair, while the AMZNUSDT Perpetual tracks Amazon's share price with leverage of your choosing.
What is a tariff, and who pays it on Amazon's goods?
A tariff is a tax on imported goods, and the business that brings the goods into the country pays it when they arrive. For most items in Amazon's store, that business is a supplier or an outside seller. So a tariff usually reaches Amazon through the prices it pays suppliers and through the sellers who use its store.
The business that files the paperwork and pays the duty is called the importer of record. The Supreme Court described tariffs as operating "directly on domestic importers to raise revenue for the Treasury" (source: Supreme Court, Learning Resources v. Trump). On the call for the second quarter of 2026, Amazon's finance chief, Brian Olsavsky, said suppliers usually import the goods and pay the tariffs (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript). As a result, Amazon is not the importer of record for most items in its store (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript).
Amazon still pays for tariffs, one step later. When it buys a product from a supplier and resells it, the price it pays goes into its cost of sales, the line that also holds shipping costs (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). A supplier who paid a duty will try to get it back in that price, which is how the tariff reaches Amazon's accounts.
Say you run the numbers on a kettle that a supplier imports at a value of $20 and Amazon sells for $30. That leaves a gross profit of $10, or 33.3% of the price, before any duty. The surcharge on imports from February 24 to July 24, 2026 was 10% (source: Federal Register, Proclamation 11012). Goods from China have paid an extra Section 301 duty of 12.5% since July 24, 2026 (source: Federal Register, USTR Section 301 notice). At 10%, the supplier's cost rises by $2. If the supplier passes that on and Amazon absorbs it, Amazon's margin on the kettle falls to 26.7%. If Amazon passes it on as well, the price becomes $32, a rise of 6.7% that may cost it some sales. At 12.5%, the extra $2.50 either cuts the margin to 25.0% or lifts the price to $32.50. Most real cases land between those ends, split among the supplier, Amazon and the shopper.
First-party sales and the marketplace: two paths into Amazon's numbers
Amazon earns money from imported goods in two ways. When it sells its own stock, it books the whole price as revenue and carries any duty in its cost of sales. When an outside seller makes the sale, Amazon books only its fees, so a tariff reaches that revenue through what the seller charges, sells and spends on ads.
Amazon's annual report spells out the split: it books the full price of items it sells from its own stock as product sales (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Items sold by third-party sellers count only as its net share, booked as service sales (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Its 2025 net sales of $716.9 billion fall into seven groups (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K).
Revenue group, 2025 | Net sales | Share of $716.9 billion |
|---|---|---|
Online stores (goods Amazon sells itself) | $269.3 billion | 37.6% |
Physical stores | $22.6 billion | 3.1% |
Third-party seller services (commissions and fees) | $172.2 billion | 24.0% |
Advertising services | $68.6 billion | 9.6% |
Subscription services | $49.6 billion | 6.9% |
AWS (Amazon Web Services) | $128.7 billion | 18.0% |
Other | $5.9 billion | 0.8% |
The goods Amazon sells itself make up about 41% of revenue, and that is where a supplier's duty shows up most directly. Outside sellers move more units, though, and in the fourth quarter of 2025 they accounted for 61% of all units sold in Amazon's store, Olsavsky said (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q4 2025 call transcript). Those sellers set their own prices, so a duty on their goods can change how much they sell and how much they spend on ads, which is why the seller fees and the ad line carry tariff risk too. The annual report adds that China-based sellers bring in large parts of both lines (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). China-based suppliers also provide large parts of the goods and parts Amazon buys (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). BloFin's guide to Amazon's ad business follows that link into the ad line.
The store segments are also where a tariff can hurt profit most. Operating income is what the business earns from selling its goods and services, before interest and tax are taken off. North America earned $29.6 billion of it in 2025, a margin of just under 7% (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). AWS earned $45.6 billion, 57% of Amazon's total, at a margin of 35.4% (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). A thin margin leaves less room to absorb a new cost, so the North America line is the one to watch after a tariff change. AWS has no ticker of its own, so its profit reaches you through Amazon's share, as can you buy AWS stock explains.
The tariff rules of 2025 and 2026 that touch Amazon's goods
The broad US tariff on imports now comes from Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. Since July 24, 2026, most goods from 60 trading partners pay 10% or 12.5% under it. China's 12.5% comes on top of normal duties. The emergency tariffs of 2025 ended after the Supreme Court ruled against them on February 20, 2026.
Those emergency tariffs used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), a 1977 law for national emergencies. The Court held by six votes to three that "IEEPA does not authorize the President to impose tariffs" (source: Supreme Court, Learning Resources v. Trump). The first order under that law to cover imports from every trading partner was signed on April 2, 2025 (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14257). An April 9 order paused the April 2 order's higher country rates except for China (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14266). A May 12 order cut the April 2 order's tariff on Chinese goods to 10% (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14298).
Date of the action | What happened | Legal text |
|---|---|---|
April 2, 2025 | 10% tariff on most imports from April 5, with higher rates for dozens of countries from April 9 | Executive Order 14257 |
April 9, 2025 | Higher country rates paused for 90 days, except for China | Executive Order 14266 |
May 12, 2025 | April 2 tariff on Chinese goods cut to 10% for 90 days from May 14 | Executive Order 14298 |
August 29, 2025 | Duty-free entry of low-value parcels suspended for all countries | Executive Order 14324 |
February 20, 2026 | Supreme Court rules the IEEPA tariffs unlawful | Learning Resources v. Trump |
February 24, 2026 | 10% surcharge on most imports for 150 days under Section 122 | Proclamation 11012 |
July 24, 2026 | Section 301 duties of 10% or 12.5% on 60 trading partners take effect | USTR Section 301 notice |
September 27, 2026 | US and China name $30 billion of goods each way for possible tariff cuts | USTR statement |
Section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 allows a surcharge of up to 15% for up to 150 days (source: Federal Register, Proclamation 11012). The forced-labor action by the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) then set two rates. Countries that ban goods made with forced labor, partly ban them or have agreed in a trade deal to ban them pay 10%, and most of the rest, China among them, pay 12.5% (source: Federal Register, USTR Section 301 notice). For some economies, including the European Union and Taiwan, the rate includes the normal duty instead of coming on top of it (source: Federal Register, USTR Section 301 notice). The Court of International Trade heard a challenge to those duties on September 30, 2026. A ruling is expected within weeks (source: Reuters via BNN Bloomberg). On Sunday, September 27, 2026, USTR said the new US-China Board of Trade had recommended $30 billion of goods on each side that could get better tariff treatment later (source: USTR, statement on the US-China Board of Trade). The statement names household goods and toys among the imports from China. The White House posted the product lists that night. It said both governments "will consider" them for reduced tariffs under their own laws (source: White House, US-China Board of Trade). Until a rate and a start date are published, the lists tell you which goods to watch.
De minimis, Temu, Shein and Amazon Haul
De minimis was the rule that let a parcel worth $800 or less enter the United States without duty. Low-price sellers such as Temu and Shein used it to ship single orders straight from China to shoppers' homes. Since August 29, 2025, the rule has been suspended for every country, so those parcels now pay duty too.
That rule mattered to Amazon because of where its rivals' costs sat. Stock shipped in bulk to a warehouse paid any duty owed at the border, while parcels mailed one by one under $800 did not. That gave direct-from-China sites a price edge, and the edge grew as tariffs rose. GeekWire described the rule as fueling platforms that ship straight to shoppers and skip bulk shipments to warehouses (source: GeekWire, April 29, 2025).
The suspension came in steps, starting with parcels from China and Hong Kong, which lost the exemption on May 2, 2025 (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14256). An order signed on July 30, 2025 extended the suspension to every country from August 29 (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14324). After the ruling, a new order signed on February 20, 2026 kept it in place from February 24 (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14388). On August 13, 2026, the Court of International Trade upheld the suspension in a case brought by an auto-parts importer (source: Supply Chain Dive).
Amazon had already moved into the low-price space. It launched Amazon Haul on November 13, 2024, a store of items at $20 or less, most under $10, with delivery in one to two weeks (source: Amazon, Amazon Haul). Haul was also at the center of a tariff dispute. On April 29, 2025, after a report that Amazon would show tariff costs next to prices, the White House called the plan a "hostile and political act" (source: GeekWire, April 29, 2025). Amazon replied that the Haul team had considered listing import charges but never approved the idea (source: GeekWire, April 29, 2025). On the day of that dispute, Amazon's share closed 0.17% lower (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). The Nasdaq Composite index, a gauge of the wider market, rose 0.55% (source: Nasdaq Composite price history).
What Amazon's CEO and CFO have said about tariffs
Amazon added "tariff and trade policies" to the risks in its guidance on May 1, 2025, after leaving them out in February. Its finance chief also widened the profit range that quarter. In July 2026, after the ruling, he said Amazon's refund was small because it had bought stock early and rarely imported the goods itself.
Guidance is Amazon's own forecast for the next quarter, and BloFin's guide to Amazon earnings reports shows how to read it. The guidance in Amazon's February 6, 2025 release named exchange rates, the economy and demand as risks, and tariffs were absent (source: Amazon Q4 2024 results). The May 1 release added "tariff and trade policies" to the list (source: Amazon Q1 2025 results). The release for the second quarter of 2026 still carries the phrase (source: Amazon Q2 2026 results).
The profit range grew too: Amazon's February 2025 guide for first-quarter operating income ran from $14.0 billion to $18.0 billion, a spread of $4.0 billion (source: Amazon Q4 2024 results). In May it guided second-quarter operating income of $13.0 billion to $17.5 billion, a spread of $4.5 billion (source: Amazon Q1 2025 results). On the call that day, Andy Jassy, Amazon's chief executive, opened his tariff remarks by saying nobody knew where tariffs would settle or when (source: GeekWire, May 1, 2025).
Date of the statement | Speaker | What they said |
|---|---|---|
May 1, 2025 | Andy Jassy, CEO | No weakening in demand yet, some stocking up ahead of tariffs, and no clear rise in average selling prices |
May 1, 2025 | Brian Olsavsky, CFO | Amazon had added a bit to its guidance range because of the uncertainty |
July 30, 2026 | Brian Olsavsky, CFO | Refunds were limited because Amazon bought ahead and was not the importer of record for most items |
Jassy also said most sellers had not changed their prices yet, and that this could change depending on where tariffs settled (source: GeekWire, May 1, 2025). Olsavsky said Amazon would pay some tariffs on its store purchases in the second quarter of 2025 (source: MarketBeat, Amazon Q1 2025 call transcript). The amount would not be large, he said, because Amazon had bought a lot of stock early (source: MarketBeat, Amazon Q1 2025 call transcript). On the July 30, 2026 call, he said Amazon was taking part in the refund process for the tariffs the Court struck down (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript).
The Supreme Court ruling and Amazon's $640 million refund
After the Supreme Court struck down the 2025 emergency tariffs on February 20, 2026, Amazon received about $640 million of tariff refunds in the second quarter of 2026. It booked them mostly as lower cost of sales in North America, and it said the sum was most of what it expects to get (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).
The dissent in the case had warned that the government "may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers" (source: Supreme Court, Learning Resources v. Trump). Olsavsky gave two reasons why the amount was limited. Amazon had bought and placed stock ahead of the tariffs, and suppliers were the importers of record for most items in its store (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript).
Say you want to judge North America's margin for that quarter on its own terms. The segment earned $9.1 billion of operating income on $116.2 billion of sales, a margin of about 7.9% (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). If the whole $640 million had landed there, it would equal 7.0% of that profit, and the margin without it would be about 7.3%. Amazon says the refunds fell "primarily" in North America, so the true effect on the segment is a little smaller than that. Because the refund will not recur, the figure to compare with later quarters is the margin before it.
Walmart, which paid the struck-down tariffs as the importer of record, received about $2.9 billion of refunds in its quarter to July 31, 2026, more than four times Amazon's sum (source: Walmart Q2 FY2027 Form 10-Q). BloFin's Amazon versus Walmart comparison sets the two retailers side by side, and Amazon's profit margins explained shows how its store margins have moved over time.
How Amazon stock has moved on tariff news
Amazon's share has moved with the wider market on tariff news, and often further. Three of its six largest daily moves from January 2025 to October 2, 2026 came on tariff days: April 3, 2025, April 9 and May 12. The other three came the day after Amazon's earnings reports.
Amazon closed 8.98% lower on April 3, 2025, the first session after the April 2 order (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history). The Nasdaq Composite fell 5.97% the same day, so about two thirds of Amazon's drop matched the market (source: Nasdaq Composite price history).
Trading day | Tariff news | Amazon's daily change | Nasdaq Composite's daily change |
|---|---|---|---|
April 3, 2025 | Day after the April 2 tariff order | −8.98% | −5.97% |
April 4, 2025 | Second day of the sell-off | −4.15% | −5.82% |
April 9, 2025 | 90-day pause on higher country rates | +11.98% | +12.16% |
May 12, 2025 | US-China tariff cut announced | +8.07% | +4.35% |
October 10, 2025 | New tariff threat against China | −4.99% | −3.56% |
October 13, 2025 | Monday after a softer weekend message | +1.71% | +2.21% |
February 20, 2026 | Supreme Court strikes down the IEEPA tariffs | +2.56% | +0.90% |
February 23, 2026 | Monday after a weekend post announcing 15% | −2.30% | −1.13% |
Say you held Amazon through the first week of April 2025. From the April 2 close of $196.01 to the April 8 close of $170.66, the share lost 12.9%, close to the Composite's 13.3%. On April 9 it closed at $191.10, winning back 81% of that fall in one day. Selling on April 8 locked in the loss, while waiting got most of it back. That is why a position sized to survive a swing serves you better than a guess about the next headline. A results day works the same way, as BloFin's guide to trading Amazon around earnings shows. The share's other drivers are set out in what moves Amazon's stock price.
When tariff news lands while Nasdaq is closed
Tariff news often arrives after Nasdaq closes at 4PM ET or on a weekend, when the share cannot trade. On BloFin, AMZNX traded in every hour of three recent weekends with tariff news. Twice, its price at 9AM ET on Monday came close to Nasdaq's opening move.
The first case began on Friday, October 10, 2025, when an extra 100% tariff on Chinese goods was announced and the S&P 500 had its worst day since April (source: Fortune, October 12, 2025). On Sunday, President Trump posted "Don't worry about China" (source: Fortune, October 12, 2025). The second came on Saturday, February 21, 2026, a day after the ruling, when President Trump posted that a 15% worldwide tariff would apply "effective immediately" (source: NPR, February 21, 2026). The proclamation signed the day before had set the surcharge at 10% (source: Federal Register, Proclamation 11012). No later order in the Federal Register raised it.
On Nasdaq, Amazon opened at $217.70 on Monday, October 13, 2025 after a $216.37 Friday close, and at $208.10 on Monday, February 23, 2026 after closing at $210.11 (source: Nasdaq AMZN price history).
Weekend | AMZNX at Friday's Nasdaq close (USDT) | AMZNX weekend range (USDT) | AMZNX at 9AM ET Monday (USDT) | Nasdaq opening move |
|---|---|---|---|---|
October 10 to 13, 2025 | 216.76 | 211.14 to 221.85 | 217.91 (+0.53%) | +0.61% |
February 20 to 23, 2026 | 210.30 | 207.87 to 211.12 | 208.49 (−0.86%) | −0.96% |
On BloFin, AMZNX traded in all 65 hours from Friday's close to 9AM ET Monday in both weekends. After the October threat it fell to 211.14 USDT in the second hour after the close, 2.6% below its Friday level. By 9AM ET Monday it was back at 217.91, above where it started. The February post barely moved the token: across that Saturday in UTC its range was under 0.8%, and its drop to 207.87 came on Sunday evening, US time. Weekend trading is thin, too: in October about 45 AMZNX changed hands an hour over the weekend, against about 344 an hour during Friday's session.
The latest case is the Board of Trade statement of Sunday, September 27, 2026. AMZNX went from 249.65 USDT at Friday's close to 247.65 at 9AM ET Monday, a fall of 0.8%. The AMZNUSDT Perpetual, listed on BloFin since February 9, 2026, traded through every hour of that weekend and the February one.
AMZNX belongs to the xStocks line of tokenized shares, which keeps its own trading hours. BloFin's risk disclosure says xStocks token markets run around the clock on weekdays only (source: BloFin xStocks risk disclosure). Plan your exits as if weekend trading might not be there.
On stock futures such as AMZNUSDT, BloFin may accept only reduce-only orders outside regular weekday hours, on weekends and on public holidays when the relevant markets are closed (source: BloFin stock futures trading update). An order set to reduce-only can shrink or close a position, and it cannot add to it or open a new one (source: BloFin, What is Reduce Only in Futures Trading?). So after a weekend headline you may be able to cut a perpetual position, while a fresh position may need to wait for Monday's session.
Before you trade on a weekend move, look up what the order will cost you on the BloFin fee schedule.
How to read the next tariff headline as an Amazon holder
Start with the legal text, then work out which goods and countries it covers and who imports those goods. Next, find the line of Amazon's report that will show the cost. Only then decide whether your AMZNX or AMZNUSDT position needs to change, with leverage low enough to ride out a gap.
Find the order: a post or a speech announces a plan, while the Federal Register or USTR text sets the rate, the start date and the exemptions. February 2026 showed the gap, with 15% announced and 10% in force.
Check the goods and the countries. A tariff on steel or on one country's cars may touch few of the items in Amazon's store, while a broad rate on China touches many.
Ask who imports them: goods Amazon buys and resells pass through its cost of sales, while seller goods reach it through fees and advertising.
Watch the numbers that will show it. North America's operating margin, the growth of seller services and any change in the guidance range tell you more than the headline does.
Size your position for a gap: on BloFin, AMZNUSDT allows leverage of 1x to 20x (source: BloFin AMZNUSDT contract details). At 20x, a move as large as April 3, 2025's 8.98% would take more than your whole margin.
Picking a leverage level on AMZNUSDT is the core of how to trade Amazon with leverage, and what happens when a loss eats your margin is shown in leverage and liquidation.
The shares held behind each token are described in is tokenized Amazon safe, and the trade-offs between the two markets are set side by side in AMZNX versus the AMZN perpetual.
Say you own 20 AMZNX and a 2x AMZNUSDT long when a tariff headline on Chinese household goods breaks on a Saturday. If the pair is trading, you can sell some tokens with a limit order at a price you choose. You can also reduce the perpetual even if new positions have to wait. Before Monday's open, check whether a signed order or a Federal Register notice exists, and whether it covers the goods Amazon sells.
Looking to gain exposure to Amazon? To get started, you'll need to first create a BloFin account, fund your account with cryptocurrency, and navigate to the AMZNX/USDT Spot trading page or AMZNUSDT Perpetual page.
Frequently asked questions
Did Amazon raise prices because of tariffs?
Amazon says it mostly did not, and its finance chief said on July 30, 2026 that where tariffs raised Amazon's costs, it largely absorbed them (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript). He also cited research firm Profitero's finding that Amazon's prices were on average 14% below other retailers' (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript). Outside sellers set their own prices, though. In January 2026, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said some tariffs had started to show up in prices, as some sellers passed the costs on while others absorbed them (source: Fortune, January 21, 2026). Prices in Amazon's store are therefore a mix of both choices.
Is Amazon giving tariff refunds to customers?
Amazon is refunding customers only in a small set of cases. Its finance chief said on July 30, 2026 that it had found a limited set of orders where it could trace that it passed import charges on to customers (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript). He said Amazon would contact those customers and refund them automatically once its own refunds arrived, and would use the rest to keep prices low (source: Motley Fool, Amazon Q2 2026 call transcript). For a shareholder, most of the refund was booked as lower cost of sales in the second quarter of 2026, which raised that quarter's profit (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q).
Are tariffs a risk for AWS?
AWS sells computing over the internet, so tariffs reach it through the servers, chips and network gear it buys for its data centers. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said in May 2025 that Amazon had once made a meaningfully larger share of its AWS and device components in China, and that it had spread that production out over about six years (source: MarketBeat, Amazon Q1 2025 call transcript). A new tariff on imported servers or chips would still raise what AWS pays to build data centers.
When does the de minimis exemption end for good?
The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, signed on July 4, 2025, ends the de minimis exemption by law (source: Federal Register, CBP de minimis rule). The end date is July 1, 2027, according to US Customs and Border Protection (source: Federal Register, CBP de minimis rule). Until then, the exemption stays suspended by executive order (source: Federal Register, Executive Order 14388). A CBP rule effective June 24, 2026 made the suspension indefinite for shipments by every route except the postal network, which a companion rule covers (source: Federal Register, CBP de minimis rule). The importer that lost at the Court of International Trade can still appeal to the Federal Circuit (source: Transport Topics).
Does Amazon report how much it pays in tariffs?
Amazon gives no yearly total for tariffs paid. Its 2025 annual report names tariffs as a risk (source: Amazon 2025 Form 10-K). Its June 2026 quarterly report does too, and the only dollar figure it ties to them is the $640 million refund (source: Amazon Q2 2026 Form 10-Q). The closest thing to a cost figure came on May 1, 2025. The CFO said first-quarter results carried one-time charges, including the cost of receiving stock bought early ahead of tariffs (source: MarketBeat, Amazon Q1 2025 call transcript). Without those charges, he said, North America's margin would have been about 0.9 points higher (source: MarketBeat, Amazon Q1 2025 call transcript).
Researched and written by the BloFin Academy editorial team with AI-assisted drafting. All facts independently verified. Primary sources include the Supreme Court's tariff ruling, the orders and notices in the Federal Register, USTR's Board of Trade statement, the White House's Board of Trade lists, Amazon's and Walmart's SEC filings, Amazon's results releases and call transcripts from Motley Fool and MarketBeat, Amazon's Haul page, Nasdaq price history, GeekWire, NPR, Fortune, Reuters, Supply Chain Dive, Transport Topics (last read September 28, 2026), and BloFin's AMZNUSDT contract details (last read October 2, 2026) and its hourly AMZNX/USDT and AMZNUSDT prices, AMZNUSDT listing date and support pages (last read September 28, 2026). The other sources are current as of October 5, 2026.
Nothing in this article constitutes financial advice, and nothing in it is a recommendation to buy, sell or hold Amazon in any form. A tariff announced on a weekend can move AMZNX before Nasdaq opens and then look different once the legal text is published, so a trade made on the headline can be wrong by Monday. Outside regular hours BloFin may accept only orders that reduce an AMZNUSDT position, and a leveraged position can be liquidated by the gap at the next open. A refund or a one-time charge can flatter or depress a single quarter without changing the business. Past performance does not indicate future results. Do your own research and consider your risk tolerance before you trade on BloFin.