SNDDeals
The eBay UK Buyer Protection Fee, Explained
Short answer: the Buyer Protection fee is paid by the buyer, not you. On private seller listings it is baked into the price buyers see while browsing, and it never reduces what you get paid.
The buyer pays this fee, you keep your price. SNDDeals shows what a flip actually nets you after the fees that do come off.
Add to Chrome — FreeThis fee arrived alongside fee-free selling for UK private sellers. eBay stopped charging sellers and started charging buyers instead, which is why so much confusion exists about who actually pays what.
How it works
When someone buys from a UK-based private seller, the item price they see already includes the Buyer Protection fee. It is then itemised separately at checkout so they can see the breakdown. The seller receives the price they listed at.
eBay calculates it on a tiered basis: a percentage of the item price that decreases as the price rises, plus a small flat fee per item. The exact bands have been adjusted at least once since launch, so this is one to check rather than memorise.
What is excluded
- Purchases from business sellers, where Buyer Protection is included at no extra cost
- Cars, motorcycles and vehicles
- Classified Ads and Property listings
When someone buys several identical items from one listing, the flat portion is charged once rather than per item, and there is a cap so that very high value purchases do not accumulate fees indefinitely.
Why it still affects you as a seller
Your payout is unaffected, but your competitiveness is not. If you list at £20, a buyer browsing sees more than £20. A business seller listing the same item at £20 shows £20 flat. On a search results page sorted by price, that difference decides who gets the click.
Two practical consequences:
- Round numbers stop being round. Listing at £9.99 does not show as £9.99 to the buyer. If you want a clean price point, you need to work backwards from the buyer-facing figure.
- Sold prices already include it. When you look at completed eBay listings to judge what something is worth, those figures reflect what buyers actually paid. That is the number that matters, and it is why sold comps are more reliable than asking prices for working out resale value.
Refunds
If a buyer gets a full refund, the fee is refunded too. Partial refunds return a proportional share. This is worth knowing because it means a return does not leave the buyer out of pocket on the fee, which reduces one source of friction on private listings.
To see what you keep on a given sale, use our free eBay UK fee calculator.
Because the buyer sees a higher number than you set, it is worth knowing how that compares elsewhere. Our Vinted vs eBay payout comparison shows both the seller payout and the buyer-facing total side by side.
See what you actually keep
The Buyer Protection fee does not touch your payout, but fees and postage on the selling side do. SNDDeals works those out for you on any of 17 UK retail sites, before you spend anything.
eBay changes these rates. The per-order fee changed in February 2026 and the Buyer Protection fee was adjusted in July 2025, so before you rely on any figure here, check it against eBay's official fees page.
For the full picture of what a private seller does and does not pay, see our guide to eBay UK private seller fees.
Price against what buyers actually see
SNDDeals shows real eBay UK sold prices, which already reflect what buyers were willing to pay including any fee added on top. Add to Chrome, free →
Not financial or tax advice. This is general information to help you make your own decisions, not a guarantee of any particular outcome.