If you sell on Amazon, few things are more frustrating than a shipment getting held at the fulfillment center over something as small as a plastic bag. Yet suffocation-warning violations are one of the most common — and most avoidable — reasons FBA inventory gets flagged. Here's exactly what Amazon expects in 2026, and how to make sure every bag you ship passes.
The 5-inch rule, in plain English
Amazon requires a printed suffocation warning on any poly bag, shrink wrap, or plastic film with an opening of 5 inches or greater, measured flat across the opening. If a bag seals your product and its opening meets or exceeds that size, the warning must be printed directly on the bag — a sticker or an insert card does not satisfy the requirement.
What the warning has to say
The warning has to be clearly legible and permanently printed on the bag. The standard compliance wording most sellers use is:
Warning: To avoid danger of suffocation, keep this bag away from babies and children. Do not use this bag in cribs, beds, carriages, or playpens. This bag is not a toy.
The required text size scales with the bag — the larger the opening, the larger the warning has to be. A small #000 mailer needs a smaller minimum than a 19×24 bag, so “one size of print for everything” is a common way to fail.
Which of your bags actually need it
- Poly mailers with a 5″+ opening — which is almost all of them above the smallest sizes.
- Poly bubble mailers (the plastic-skinned kind) at or above 5″.
- Shrink wrap and poly bags used to seal or bundle a unit.
Paper and kraft mailers are not poly film, so the suffocation rule doesn't apply to them the same way — but if you're bagging the product in poly inside a box, that inner bag still needs the warning.
The mistakes that get shipments flagged
- Using a sticker instead of printed film. The warning must be part of the bag, not applied after.
- Warning text too small for the bag size.
- The warning covered by a shipping label or product label.
- Assuming small bags are exempt — check the 5″ opening, not the product size.
The easy fix: buy bags that are already compliant
The simplest way to never think about this again is to buy poly mailers and bags that come pre-printed with the suffocation warning to spec. Our FBA Suffocation Warning Bags are printed 1.5 mil self-seal bags in every FNSKU size from 4×6 up to 19×24, in case packs from 250 to 2,500 — compliant out of the box, factory-direct, and shipped from U.S. inventory in 24–48 hours.
If you ship on Amazon regularly, it's worth stocking the sizes you use most and reordering in one click. See the full seller lineup — bags, poly mailers, bubble mailers, tape, and prep supplies — on our For Amazon Sellers page. New customers can take 10% off a first order with code PRONTO10.
Amazon's packaging and prep policies can change — always confirm the current suffocation-warning requirements in Seller Central before committing to a large run.