If you have searched for an "eBay buyer protection fee calculator", you were probably trying to answer one of two different questions: "what will I pay as a buyer?" or "does this fee come out of my sales as a seller?" The answers are very different, and most pages mix them up. This one keeps them apart: the exact formula, a table of worked examples you can read your price off, and, for sellers, a clear answer on whether you pay it (a business seller does not).
I run Sellhelm, software that prices eBay listings after every fee a seller pays, so I get asked about this fee constantly by sellers who see it on a buyer's side and worry that it is theirs to cover. It is not, and below is why. Every figure here comes from eBay's own buyer protection fee page, and the table is computed from eBay's published formula.
The short version
- Who pays it: the buyer, on items from UK-based private sellers. It does not apply to Vehicles, Classified Ads or Property.
- Business sellers do not pay it, and neither do their buyers. Buyer Protection is included at no extra charge on business listings, because business sellers already pay their own fees on every sale.
- The formula: 10p, plus 7% of the price up to £20, plus 4% of the part between £20 and £300, plus 2% of the part between £300 and £4,000. Nothing is charged on any part above £4,000.
- It is built into the price a buyer sees on a listing, so there is no separate charge at checkout. On an auction it is worked out on the final price.
- It is not optional, and you pay it once per listing however many you buy in one order (the 10p is charged only once).
1. How the buyer protection fee is worked out
The fee has a small flat part and three percentage bands, a little like income tax: each band is charged only on the slice of the price that falls inside it.
- 10p flat per item. eBay cut this from 75p in 2025, which helped most on items of £10 and under (eBay's seller announcement).
- 7% of the price, up to £20.
- 4% of the part of the price from £20 to £300.
- 2% of the part of the price from £300 to £4,000.
- Nothing on any part above £4,000, so the fee stops growing at £4,000.
Two of eBay's own worked examples show the method. A £20 item: 10p plus 7% of £20 (£1.40) is £1.50, so the buyer pays £21.50 plus postage. A £1,500 item: 10p, plus £1.40 on the first £20, plus £11.20 on the next £280 (4%), plus £24.00 on the next £1,200 (2%), is £36.70, so the buyer pays £1,536.70 plus postage. Both match the table below.
2. The fee at every price: a calculator you can read
Find your item price in the left column; the fee is next to it. For a price in between, use the formula above, or work out the slice in each band.
| Item price | Buyer protection fee | Buyer pays for the item | Fee as a share of the price |
|---|---|---|---|
| £5.00 | £0.45 | £5.45 | 9% |
| £10.00 | £0.80 | £10.80 | 8% |
| £20.00 | £1.50 | £21.50 | 7.5% |
| £50.00 | £2.70 | £52.70 | 5.4% |
| £100.00 | £4.70 | £104.70 | 4.7% |
| £250.00 | £10.70 | £260.70 | 4.3% |
| £300.00 | £12.70 | £312.70 | 4.2% |
| £500.00 | £16.70 | £516.70 | 3.3% |
| £1,000.00 | £26.70 | £1,026.70 | 2.7% |
| £1,500.00 | £36.70 | £1,536.70 | 2.4% |
| £4,000.00 | £86.70 | £4,086.70 | 2.2% |
| £5,000.00 | £86.70 | £5,086.70 | 1.7% |
Notice the shape of it. The fee is a high percentage on cheap items (a £5 item carries 9%) and falls steadily as the price rises, to about 2.4% by £1,500. That is by design: the first £20 is where the 7% band applies, and larger purchases mostly sit in the 2% band.
3. If you are a seller: do you pay it?
This is the part people get wrong. The buyer protection fee is charged to buyers of private-seller listings. If you sell as a business seller, which is what anyone buying stock to resell is, it is not charged to your buyers and it does not come out of your sales. What you pay instead is the set of seller fees: the final value fee, the per-order fee, the regulatory operating fee and the VAT on them. Those are explained, with a full rate table for every category and worked examples, in our guide to eBay UK selling fees in 2026, and you can price a listing against them with the free eBay fee calculator.
Why is the line drawn there? eBay's own explanation is that business sellers already pay transaction fees with each item that sells, so buyer protection is simply included for their buyers. For private sellers, who pay no final value fee, the buyer pays a fee that funds the protection instead. If you are not sure which of the two you are, the test is not what you call yourself: buying goods with the aim of selling them on for a profit makes you a business seller. Our post on business versus private selling explains where eBay and the law draw the line.
There is one practical point in your favour as a business seller. Because your buyers do not pay a separate protection fee on top of your price, the price they compare against a private seller's listing is the real price, and a private seller's headline figure is the lower of the two. That is a small honest edge, and it is worth remembering when you are deciding how to present a price.
4. If you are a buyer: what to expect
The fee is already inside the price you see, on listings, in bids and in offers, so you will not meet a surprise line at checkout. For auctions it is worked on the final price. If you are comparing a private seller's price with a business seller's, add the fee from the table to the private one to compare like with like, because the business seller's price already includes protection and the private seller's headline price does not. The protection itself is eBay's money-back cover if an item does not arrive or is not as described; the details are on eBay's page.
5. Three mistakes people make with this fee
- Subtracting it from their own sale as a seller. A business seller does not pay it. Taking it off in your profit sums makes the margin look worse than it is and can wrongly push you to raise a price.
- Forgetting the real seller fees. A business seller's real costs are the four fees in our fees guide. On a £50 item in the Furniture category they are not trivial, and they are the ones to put in every price.
- Assuming the percentage is flat. It is not: it is a band structure that falls as the price rises. Quoting "7%" or "4%" for a whole price is wrong except on the smallest items.
6. A worked comparison: the same £50 item, two kinds of seller
Putting the two sets of fees side by side makes the difference plain. Take an item priced at £50.00 (postage ignored, to keep it simple).
- Sold by a private seller: the buyer pays the buyer protection fee on top. 10p plus £1.40 on the first £20 plus £1.20 on the next £30 (4%) is £2.70, so the buyer pays £52.70. The seller pays no final value fee and no regulatory fee, and keeps the full £50.00.
- Sold by a business seller in Home, Furniture and DIY (General): the buyer pays £50.00 and nothing extra. The seller pays eBay's four charges: £5.95 final value fee, £0.40 per-order fee, £0.18 regulatory fee and £1.31 VAT on those, £7.83 in all, and keeps £42.17 before the cost of the item.
The point is not that one is better. It is that the fees fall on different people: the private seller's buyer carries the cost of protection, while the business seller carries it inside their own fees. That is why a business seller's price is already the real price, and why you should never take a buyer protection fee off your own sales. If you want to run the business-seller side for your own price and category, the free fee calculator does it in one step, and our UK selling fees guide lists every category's rate.
7. Using this on a real listing
If you buy from or sell to other eBay users, bookmark eBay's page as the source of truth, because eBay does change these figures (the flat part moved from 75p to 10p in 2025). If you are a business seller pricing stock, you do not need the buyer protection formula at all; you need your category's final value fee, the per-order fee, the 0.35% regulatory fee and the VAT on them, which the calculator does in one step, and which you can check against eBay's business seller fees page.
If you run a whole shop, the calculation has to be repeated every time a supplier changes a price. That is exactly the job Sellhelm does for every product at once, so the price you list is always a price that leaves the profit you wanted after every real fee.
Questions people ask
How much is the eBay buyer protection fee in the UK?
It is 10p plus 7% of the item price up to £20, 4% of the part from £20 to £300 and 2% of the part from £300 to £4,000, with nothing charged above £4,000. A £20 item carries £1.50 (so £21.50 in all) and a £1,500 item £36.70.
Who pays the buyer protection fee?
The buyer pays it, on listings from UK-based private sellers. It does not apply to Vehicles, Classified Ads or Property, and it is not charged on business sellers' listings.
Do business sellers pay the buyer protection fee?
No. Buyer Protection is included at no extra cost on business listings, because business sellers already pay their own fees (final value fee, per-order fee and regulatory fee) on every sale. Those are the fees to put in your prices.
Is the buyer protection fee included in the price I see?
Yes. The fee is already built into the price shown on a listing and in bids and offers, so there is no separate charge at checkout. On an auction it is worked out on the final price.
Can I opt out of the buyer protection fee?
No. eBay says it is not an optional fee.
Is the buyer protection fee charged once per order?
The 10p flat part is charged only once when you buy several of the same item in a single listing; the percentage bands apply to the price.
Has the eBay buyer protection fee changed?
The flat part was cut from 75p to 10p in 2025, which helps mostly on items of £10 and under. eBay can change the figures, so check eBay's help page for the current rate.