Quick Takeaways
Amazon cuts the product title cap from 200 characters to 75 on July 27, 2026, in every category except media. A new Item Highlights field adds 125 searchable characters, bullets allow up to 500 characters each, and backend search terms fail past 249 bytes. This guide covers every limit, plus how to check each field free before Amazon flags it.
Amazon FBA listing character limits got a hard deadline: on July 27, 2026, the title cap drops from 200 characters to 75, per Amazon's announcement. Any title still over the limit after that date gets rewritten by Amazon's AI. You built those titles keyword by keyword, so handing them to a bot is a rough way to lose them.
Here's the 2026 picture: titles allow under 200 characters until July 27, then 75, while bullet points allow up to 500 characters each. Product descriptions cap at 2,000 characters of plain text, and backend search terms must stay within 249 bytes. The new Item Highlights field adds 125 searchable characters.
The details matter more than the headline numbers, though. Some limits count characters, one counts bytes, and the penalties range from truncation to a silently dead field. Let's walk through each one.
Table of Contents
Amazon FBA Listing Character Limits at a Glance
The July 27 Title Change: 200 Characters Down to 75
Bullet Points: 500 Characters Each, but Shorter Wins
Product Description: 2,000 Characters, Plain Text Only
Backend Search Terms: 249 Bytes, Not Characters
How to Check Amazon FBA Listing Character Limits Before Amazon Does
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion
Amazon FBA Listing Character Limits at a Glance
Every field on your listing has its own cap, and each one punishes overruns in its own way. Bookmark this table, because you'll need it every time you write or edit a listing this year.
Each listing field, its cap, and what happens if you exceed it.
One warning before you treat these as universal: several categories enforce lower caps through their own style guides. Check the style guide for your category inside Seller Central before you write a single field to the maximum.
Every field, its 2026 limit, and what Amazon does if you go over.
The July 27 Title Change: 200 Characters Down to 75
This is the change that should be on every seller's calendar. Amazon announced that starting July 27, 2026, titles in all categories except media must be 75 characters or less, including spaces. The stated goal is full title display on mobile, where more shoppers browse every year.
The enforcement mechanism is the part that stings. Titles still over the cap after the deadline get replaced with an AI-generated version. Brand owners then have 14 days to review the suggestion, and the bot's version sticks if they miss the window.
The title change is big enough to deserve its own guide. Our Amazon product title character limit walkthrough shows exactly how to rewrite for 75.
Where Your Cut Keywords Go: Item Highlights
Amazon paired the shorter title with a new field called Item Highlights, which gives you 125 extra characters for materials, features, or use cases. The content is searchable and appears with your title in search results and on the product page. Think of it as the overflow tank for everything your old 180-character title used to carry.
How to Prepare Before the Deadline
Export your inventory and flag every title over 75 characters.
Rewrite the flagged titles yourself: brand, product type, and the one spec buyers search for.
Move the trimmed keywords into Item Highlights, bullets, or backend search terms.
Start with your best sellers, since those are the listings you can least afford to hand to the AI.
Watch your listings after July 27 and review any AI suggestions within the 14 days.
Bullet Points: 500 Characters Each, but Shorter Wins
Sellers get five bullet points, and Amazon's flat file spec allows up to 500 characters apiece. Its product bullet point requirements also recommend staying under 1,000 characters across all five, so treat 200 per bullet as the safe target. A 500-character bullet reads like a wall of text on a phone anyway.
The same requirements page bans more than length violations. Special characters, emojis, guarantee phrases like "full refund," pricing details, and contact information can all get a bullet flagged or removed. Amazon also uses AI review here, so a violation doesn't need a human to catch it.
Write each bullet around one benefit, front-load the words shoppers actually search, and keep the length consistent across all five. Your bullets are indexed for search, so they're doing SEO work and sales work at the same time.
Product Description: 2,000 Characters, Plain Text Only
The standard product description caps at 2,000 characters, and the field is plain text. Amazon stopped supporting HTML tags in descriptions after July 17, 2021, so bold and list tags get stripped rather than rejected. Only the line break still renders. The HTML change catches out a lot of older listings. Our guide to the Amazon product description character limit covers what still renders.
Brand-registered sellers usually replace the description with A+ Content, which follows its own per-module limits. Even then, the plain description field is still worth filling, because it can surface when A+ modules don't load or when a variation switches.
Your category's style guide in Seller Central states the exact description spec for your product type, so confirm it there before a big rewrite. Ten minutes of checking beats a listing edit that won't save.
A listing title checked against its character cap before upload.
Backend Search Terms: 249 Bytes, Not Characters
This is the field that quietly kills the most keyword work. Amazon's wording is that search terms must be less than 250 bytes, which makes 249 your usable ceiling.
Its support staff confirm the number directly, stating that the limit for generic keywords is 249 bytes. Pass it and Amazon can ignore the whole field.
Bytes and characters aren't the same thing. Standard letters and numbers cost 1 byte each, while accented characters like ä cost 2 and symbols like € cost 3. A field that looks like 245 characters can already be past 249 bytes if it contains anything beyond plain English.
Amazon's rules for the field are strict in other ways too. Skip brand names, skip words already in your title and bullets, separate terms with spaces rather than commas, and don't repeat anything. Every byte you waste on a duplicate is a byte a new search term could have used.
How to Check Amazon FBA Listing Character Limits Before Amazon Does
You can't fix what you haven't measured, and Seller Central won't always warn you before a field fails. UltraWordCounter exists for exactly this job: paste any text and you'll see the word and character count instantly, with nothing uploaded and nothing saved.
For listings, check every field with the free Amazon listing checker. It tracks your title, bullets, and description against their limits and flags restricted words before Amazon does. Backend search terms get counted in bytes, so the 250-byte trap can't sneak up on you.
Everything runs in your browser, free up to 800 words per session. A full pre-upload check takes about three minutes. Paste your new 75-character title, run each bullet through, check the description with its HTML included, then finish with the backend field in byte mode.
Questions about how the counters handle each field are answered on the UltraWordCounter FAQ page.
Sellers managing big catalogs tend to blow past the free session cap while auditing. The Pro plan removes the 800-word limit for $19 a month, or $12 a month if you pay annually, $144/year with a 7-day free trial, cancel anytime. If your catalog is five ASINs, stay free; that's fine with us.
Why backend keywords are measured in bytes, not characters.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Amazon title character limit in 2026?
Until July 26, 2026, titles must stay under 200 characters in most categories, with some category style guides setting lower caps. From July 27, 2026, Amazon enforces a 75-character maximum, including spaces, in every category except media. Titles over the new cap get rewritten by Amazon's AI.
How many characters can Amazon bullet points have?
Amazon's flat file spec allows up to 500 characters each across five bullets. Its help guidance recommends under 1,000 total, which works out near 200 apiece, so treat 500 as an absolute ceiling. Content rules apply too: no emojis, no guarantee phrases, and no pricing or contact details.
Are backend search terms limited by characters or bytes?
Bytes, and the distinction matters. Amazon's wording is less than 250 bytes, so 249 is your usable ceiling. Plain letters cost 1 byte while accented characters cost 2 or more, and passing the limit lets Amazon ignore the entire field.
What is the Item Highlights field on Amazon?
Item Highlights is a new field arriving with the July 27, 2026 title change. It gives sellers 125 characters for materials, features, or recommended use cases, and the content is searchable. The text appears alongside your title in search results, making it the natural home for keywords cut from long titles.
What happens if my title is over 75 characters after July 27?
Amazon gradually replaces non-compliant titles with AI-generated versions after the deadline. Brand owners get 14 days to review, edit, or approve the suggested title before it publishes. Rewrite your own titles before the cutoff, because the AI doesn't know which keyword actually drives your sales.
Conclusion
Amazon FBA listing character limits used to be a set-and-forget detail, and 2026 ended that. The 75-character title deadline is real, the byte trap is real, and every field now has an automated reviewer looking over your shoulder. Sellers who count their fields before uploading keep control of their own listings.
The fix costs you minutes, not money. Paste each field into UltraWordCounter before it reaches Seller Central, watch the counts update as you type, and upload with nothing left to chance. Try it free and let Amazon's AI rewrite someone else's titles instead.
Written by the UltraWordCounter editorial team: listing specialists who use these counters daily to keep real Amazon titles, bullets, and backend fields inside their limits. We rewrote our own test listings for the July 27 change before publishing this guide.