If you tried to log into Seller Central this week and got stopped by a screen asking you to scan your fingerprint or set up something called a “passkey,” you’re not imagining things, and you’re not alone. Amazon started rolling out mandatory passkey sign-in across Seller Central in late September 2026, and the seller forums have been full of confused, occasionally panicked threads ever since. Some sellers are locked out mid-shift. Others aren’t sure if their VA or agency partner can still log in. Here’s what’s actually happening and what to do about it today, not after you’ve already lost access during peak season prep.
What’s Actually Changing
Amazon has been building toward this for almost a year. Passkey sign-in first showed up as an optional, “encouraged” feature back in December 2025, expanded to more accounts through the summer, and is now becoming mandatory on a rolling, account-by-account basis starting around late September 2026. There’s no single cutover date for every seller. Amazon is pushing the requirement out in waves, so you might see it today, next week, or not until next month depending on your account.
A passkey isn’t a password with extra steps. It uses your device’s own authentication, a fingerprint, a face scan, or a PIN, tied to encrypted keys stored on your phone or computer instead of a string of characters you type and can accidentally hand over to a phishing page. Once your account is switched over, your old password stops working for routine sign-in. It’s still there as a recovery fallback, but day-to-day login runs through the passkey.
Why Amazon Is Doing This Now
This isn’t a random UX experiment. Account takeovers have been a real and growing problem across Amazon’s whole platform. In late 2025, Amazon put out a direct warning to roughly 300 million customers about a surge in phishing attempts, fake delivery notices, bogus tech support calls, and deceptive ads designed to harvest login credentials and payment details. Amazon’s own guidance at the time specifically pointed people toward passkeys as the fix, stating plainly that the company will never ask for payment information over the phone or send emails asking customers to verify account credentials.
Seller accounts are an even juicier target than buyer accounts. A hijacked Seller Central login gives an attacker access to disbursement bank details, the ability to redirect payouts, the ability to edit live listings on an established brand, and in the worst cases the ability to lock the real owner out entirely while draining the account. Passwords get reused, phished, and leaked in data breaches constantly. A passkey tied to a physical device closes most of that attack surface in one move, which is almost certainly why Amazon decided to stop asking nicely and start requiring it.
How to Set Yours Up Before You’re Forced To
Don’t wait for the forced prompt to figure this out during a busy morning. It takes about five minutes to set up voluntarily, and doing it on your own schedule beats being locked out of a live account.
- Go to Login Settings. In Seller Central, open your account settings and look for the Login Settings or Passkey section.
- Set up a passkey on at least two devices. One is a single point of failure. If your phone is lost, stolen, or being repaired, a second registered device (a laptop, a tablet, a backup phone) keeps you from getting locked out.
- Use a synced passkey manager if you can. Passkeys created through Apple, Google, or Microsoft accounts sync across your own devices automatically, which is far more reliable than treating each device as a one-off.
- Keep your password recovery info current. Your password isn’t gone, it’s your fallback if every passkey device is unavailable, so make sure the recovery email and phone number on file are ones you actually still control.
What This Means for Teams, VAs, and Agencies
This is the part causing the most friction in the forums. If you have a virtual assistant, an agency partner, or a team member who logs into your account directly (rather than through User Permissions as a proper secondary user), passkeys break that workflow. Each person who needs access has to be registered as their own secondary user under Manage Your User Permissions, using an email address that isn’t already tied to another Amazon account, and then set up their own passkey on their own device.
If you’ve been sharing one login and password across a few people to save on secondary-user setup, now is the time to fix that properly. It was already against Amazon’s terms of service to share primary credentials across multiple people. The passkey rollout just makes the workaround technically impossible instead of merely against the rules.
What to Do If You’re Already Locked Out
If you hit the forced passkey wall without warning and don’t have a compatible device handy, don’t panic and don’t repeatedly hammer the login page. Use the password-based account recovery flow, which still works as a fallback, complete the passkey setup once you’re back in, and add a second device immediately so this doesn’t happen again. If recovery fails or the account shows unusual activity you didn’t cause, open a case with Seller Support right away and flag it as an account access and security issue specifically, since that routing tends to move faster than a generic technical support ticket.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to switch to a passkey right now?
It depends on your account. Amazon is rolling this out in waves rather than all at once, so some sellers are already required to use a passkey while others still see the old password-only login. If you haven’t been prompted yet, you likely will be soon, so setting one up voluntarily now avoids a surprise lockout later.
What happens to my password?
It doesn’t disappear. It remains active as an account recovery method if you ever lose access to every device with a registered passkey, but it stops working for normal day-to-day sign-in once your account is switched over.
Can my agency or VA still log into my account?
Not by sharing your login. Anyone who needs regular access should be added as a secondary user under User Permissions with their own unique email address, and then set up their own passkey on their own device. This was already the compliant way to grant access; passkeys just make it the only way that actually works.
What if I only have one device and it gets lost or replaced?
This is exactly why Amazon recommends registering a passkey on at least two devices, or using a passkey manager that syncs across your Apple, Google, or Microsoft account. If you’re down to one device and it’s gone, use the password recovery flow to get back in, then immediately register a second passkey device.
Does a passkey replace two-factor authentication?
A passkey is a stronger form of authentication on its own, since it’s tied to your physical device instead of something you type and can be tricked into revealing. Treat it as an upgrade to how you sign in, not an extra step on top of your existing login.
Account security isn’t the most exciting part of running an Amazon business, but a locked or hijacked account during Q4 prep is the kind of problem that costs real money fast. If you want help getting your account, listings, and ad strategy in order before peak season hits, Depu works with FBA sellers and e-commerce brands as a freelance consultant on exactly this kind of thing, and he’s currently taking on new clients.
Sources:
EcomCrew: Amazon Starts Requiring Seller Central Passkeys in Late September
SentryKit: Amazon Seller Central Passkeys, What They Protect
Forbes: Amazon Issues Attack Alert, 300 Million Customers Are Now At Risk
Amazon Seller Forums: Passkey verification for Seller Central sign-in