Platform Operations · 2026-04-14
Amazon INFORM Consumers Act: How to Pass Address Verification with a Commercial Sublease
The INFORM Consumers Act requires high-volume Amazon sellers to provide verified identity and business address. PO Boxes and mail forwarding addresses are rejected. A commercial sublease passes verification because it creates real, verifiable tenancy. Chinese and Japanese sellers are most affected — here is exactly how to comply.
The INFORM Consumers Act Changed the Rules for Amazon Sellers
The INFORM Consumers Act was signed into US law in December 2022 and took effect on June 27, 2023. It requires online marketplaces to collect and verify the identity of high-volume third-party sellers. Amazon, Walmart, eBay, Etsy, and other major platforms are all subject to this law.
The act was designed to combat the sale of stolen, counterfeit, and unsafe products through online marketplaces. Its mechanism is straightforward: if you sell more than $5,000 in goods through an online marketplace in a 12-month period, the marketplace must verify your identity, tax information, and business address. If you cannot be verified, the marketplace must suspend your selling privileges.
For domestic sellers operating from a home or office address, INFORM compliance is usually transparent — the marketplace verifies your information against existing databases and you never notice. For international sellers, especially those from China and Japan who represent a significant portion of Amazon's third-party marketplace, INFORM has created a major compliance challenge centered on one thing: address verification.
What Amazon Now Requires Under INFORM
Amazon's INFORM compliance process requires high-volume sellers to provide and verify:
Government-Issued ID
A valid government-issued photo identification document. For US sellers, this is typically a driver's license or passport. For international sellers, a passport is the standard document. Amazon verifies this through automated identity verification, sometimes including a video call.
Tax ID Verification
Your EIN (Employer Identification Number) if you operate as an LLC or corporation, or your SSN/ITIN for sole proprietors. Amazon cross-references this with IRS records.
Bank Account Verification
A verified bank account in the name of the business. Amazon may deposit small amounts and ask you to confirm, or verify through other methods. This connects your financial identity to your seller account.
Business Address Verification
This is where most international sellers encounter problems. Amazon requires a verifiable business address that meets specific criteria:
Must be a real, physical address (not a PO Box)
Must not be a mail forwarding address
Must be verifiable through commercial databases or address verification services
Must match the address on your business registration documents
Must be an address where you or your business has a physical presence
How Address Verification Works Under INFORM
Amazon uses address verification services that check your submitted address against multiple data sources:
USPS databases — Is the address a valid, deliverable US address? Is it classified as residential, commercial, or PO Box?
Commercial address databases — What is the address type? Is it associated with a virtual mailbox service, a registered agent, or a CMRA?
Entity density — How many businesses are registered at this address? High density suggests a shared or virtual location.
Business registration cross-reference — Does the address on your Amazon seller application match the address on your Secretary of State filing?
The verification is more than a simple format check. Amazon's system (or its verification partners) actively evaluates whether the address represents a real location where business is conducted, not just a mail drop.
What Gets Rejected Under INFORM
Based on seller reports and Amazon's published guidelines, the following address types consistently fail INFORM verification:
PO Boxes — Explicitly prohibited under INFORM. A PO Box is not a physical business address.
Mail forwarding addresses — Addresses at services like iPostal1, Anytime Mailbox, PostScan Mail, or similar virtual mailbox providers. These are mailing addresses, not business addresses, and Amazon's verification systems can identify them.
CMRA addresses — Commercial Mail Receiving Agencies (UPS Store, PostNet, etc.) are flagged in USPS databases. Even if you have a suite number that looks like a real office, the underlying address is identified as a CMRA.
Registered agent addresses — Formation service RA addresses (ZenBusiness, LegalZoom, Northwest, CSC) are recognizable to verification systems due to extreme entity density and known RA status.
Home country addresses for US marketplace sales — If you are selling on Amazon.com (the US marketplace), a Chinese or Japanese home address may not satisfy INFORM requirements for US seller verification. Amazon may require a US business address for certain verification levels.
Why Chinese and Japanese Sellers Are Most Affected
Chinese and Japanese sellers represent a massive portion of Amazon's third-party marketplace. Estimates suggest that Chinese sellers alone account for roughly 50% of top Amazon marketplace sellers. Japanese cross-border sellers are a significant and growing segment as well.
These sellers face a unique INFORM challenge:
No US physical presence. Most Chinese and Japanese Amazon sellers operate entirely from their home country. They manufacture products, ship to Amazon FBA warehouses, and manage their seller accounts remotely. They have never set foot in the United States, let alone maintained a physical office there.
Formation service addresses do not pass. Many of these sellers formed US LLCs through formation services to establish a US business entity. The addresses provided by these services — registered agent addresses or virtual mailbox addresses — do not pass INFORM address verification for the reasons described above.
Home country addresses create verification complexity. Using a Chinese or Japanese address for a US Amazon seller account introduces cross-border verification complexity. Amazon's verification systems are optimized for US address verification, and non-US addresses go through different (and often more stringent) verification paths.
Language and documentation barriers. INFORM compliance documentation is primarily in English. For sellers whose primary language is Chinese or Japanese, navigating the verification process — especially when disputes or appeals are involved — is significantly more difficult.
The result: a large population of legitimate sellers who have been selling on Amazon for years, running real businesses with real products, suddenly face account suspension risk because their address infrastructure was never designed to pass INFORM verification.
How a Commercial Sublease Passes INFORM Verification
A commercial sublease solves the INFORM address problem because it satisfies every criterion that INFORM and Amazon's verification systems check:
Real Physical Address
A sublease is at a real, physical commercial location. It is not a PO Box, not a mail forwarding address, not a CMRA. The address is a brick-and-mortar commercial space.
Verifiable Tenancy
Your LLC is named as the tenant on the sublease agreement. This creates a verifiable legal relationship between your business entity and the physical address. If Amazon or its verification partners check, they can confirm that your business has a legitimate right to use that address.
Low Entity Density
Unlike a virtual mailbox address shared by hundreds of businesses, a sublease address has low entity density. Your LLC may be one of only a few entities at that address, which is consistent with a real business location.
Public Records Consistency
When you update your Secretary of State filing to reflect the sublease address as your principal office, your business registration, your Amazon seller profile, and your sublease all show the same address. This consistency across public records is a strong positive signal for verification systems.
Documentable Proof
The executed sublease agreement itself serves as proof of address. If Amazon requests supplementary documentation during verification, you can provide the lease showing your LLC as the tenant, the address, the lease term, and the signatures of both parties.
Step-by-Step: INFORM Compliance with a Sublease
Step 1: Secure a Commercial Sublease
Get a sublease agreement for a US commercial address where your LLC is the named tenant with a specific suite or unit number. The lease should be in your LLC's legal name — the same name on your Amazon seller account.
Step 2: Update Your SOS Filing
File an amendment with your Secretary of State to change your principal office address to the sublease address. This ensures consistency between your business registration and your Amazon seller profile.
Step 3: Update Amazon Seller Central
In Amazon Seller Central, update your business address to match your sublease address. Navigate to Account Info and update the Business Address field. Ensure the address format exactly matches your SOS filing and sublease.
Step 4: Complete INFORM Verification
When Amazon triggers INFORM verification (either automatically based on sales volume or as part of a periodic review), your updated address should pass automated verification. If Amazon requests supplementary documentation, provide:
Your executed sublease agreement
Your updated Secretary of State filing showing the new address
Your EIN letter (confirming entity name)
Step 5: Maintain Consistency Across Platforms
If you sell on multiple platforms (Amazon, Walmart, eBay), use the same sublease address across all of them. INFORM applies to all covered marketplaces, and consistent address documentation across platforms prevents verification issues.
Amazon Video Verification and Address
Amazon has increasingly used video verification calls as part of seller identity verification. During these calls, an Amazon representative may ask you to show identification documents and confirm business details. While the video call primarily verifies your personal identity, having consistent and verifiable business address documentation strengthens your overall verification profile.
If your address is a known virtual mailbox or RA address, the video verification agent may flag this inconsistency. If your address is a legitimate sublease address that matches your SOS filing and seller profile, the verification is straightforward.
For a complete guide to Amazon's video verification process, see How to Pass Amazon Video Verification.
Timeline for INFORM Compliance
If you are a high-volume seller who needs to establish INFORM-compliant address infrastructure:
**Week 1:** Secure a commercial sublease
**Week 1-2:** File SOS amendment to update principal office address
**Week 2-3:** Update Amazon Seller Central with new address
**Week 2-5:** Allow database propagation for automated verification
**Week 5+:** Complete INFORM verification if triggered
If you are approaching the $5,000 annual sales threshold or have already received an INFORM verification request from Amazon, start immediately. Account suspensions for INFORM non-compliance can take weeks to resolve through Amazon's appeals process.
The Cost of Non-Compliance
INFORM non-compliance is not a minor issue. Under the law, online marketplaces are required to:
**Suspend selling privileges** for sellers who cannot be verified
**Disclose seller information** to consumers upon request (including business address)
**Report to the FTC** if sellers provide false verification information
For a seller doing significant volume on Amazon, a suspension means immediate loss of revenue, potential inventory stranding at FBA warehouses, and damage to seller metrics that can take months to recover.
The cost of establishing a commercial sublease and updating your business registrations is a fraction of the revenue at risk from an INFORM-related suspension. It is infrastructure investment, not an expense.
Beyond INFORM: Building Platform-Resilient Infrastructure
INFORM is just one example of increasing platform verification requirements. The trend is clear: marketplaces, payment processors, and banks are all moving toward stricter identity and address verification. What works today may not work next year.
Building your business on a foundation of real, verifiable infrastructure — a proper LLC, a commercial sublease, an updated SOS filing, and consistent documentation — creates resilience against future verification requirements. You are not just solving today's INFORM problem. You are building infrastructure that will pass whatever verification standard comes next.
For a complete guide to registering your Amazon seller account with proper business infrastructure, see How to Register an Amazon Seller Account in 2026. For details on the video verification component, see How to Pass Amazon Video Verification.