Expiry Date Label Generator — Product Expiry Stickers PDF Free Online

📅The Shipment That Got Rejected Because of a Date Format

About two years ago I started selling a line of supplement products on Amazon FBA. The manufacturer printed the best before date in European format — DD/MM/YYYY — which is perfectly fine in Europe but Amazon explicitly doesn't accept it. I sent in 200 units and they all got flagged during receiving. The inventory was put on hold while I sorted out a relabeling arrangement.

The cost wasn't catastrophic but the disruption was real — about 12 days of inventory sitting unavailable while I paid a prep center to manually apply correct-format labels to each unit. That's the kind of thing that kills your IPI score and messes with restocking plans. All of it preventable if I'd just printed the right labels before shipping.

This tool fixes that. You enter your product names and expiry dates, pick the date format Amazon requires, choose how many labels you need, and download a PDF that prints on standard label sheets. It handles multiple products with different dates in one go — which is exactly what you need when you're prepping a big mixed shipment and every SKU has a different shelf life.

📋How to Generate Expiry Date Labels — Step by Step

📖Amazon FBA Expiry Date Requirements — What Sellers Actually Need to Know

Amazon's expiry date policy is part of their Expiration Dates on FBA Products guidelines. Here's a plain-English breakdown of what matters:

• Which products need expiry dates: Any product with a limited shelf life. This includes food and groceries, dietary supplements and vitamins, topical products (lotions, creams, serums), baby products, pet food and treats, and anything that can expire, degrade, or become unsafe over time. When in doubt, add a date — Amazon is more likely to flag a missing date than a product that has one unnecessarily.
• Required date formats: Amazon accepts MM-DD-YYYY and MM-YYYY only. They do not accept DD-MM-YYYY (European format), written months like "January 2025", or year-only dates. If your manufacturer uses a non-standard format, you need to apply a label with the correct format before sending to FBA.
• Minimum shelf life remaining: Amazon requires that products sent to FBA have at least 105 days of shelf life remaining at the time they arrive at the fulfillment center. Products with less than 50 days of shelf life when a customer orders them will be removed from sale. Plan your inventory replenishment with these windows in mind.
• Where to put the label: The expiry date must be on the exterior of the product or its immediate packaging. It has to be visible without opening the product. For bottles, it should be on the label or the bottom — not under the cap. For bags, on the flat side. For boxes, on a prominent face.
• Lot numbers vs expiry dates: Amazon requires the expiry date itself — a lot number alone is not sufficient. If your product only has a lot number printed on it, you still need to add the actual expiry date in the correct format.

🏷️Which Label Prefix Should You Use?

• "BEST BEFORE" or "BB": Used for food products — it means the product is at its best quality before this date but may still be safe to consume after. Standard in UK, Europe, and increasingly used in the US for packaged food. Amazon accepts this phrasing.
• "USE BY": Stronger language — means the product should not be consumed after this date for safety reasons. Used for dairy, fresh meat, baby formula, and similar. If your product has a safety-based expiry, "Use By" is more accurate than "Best Before."
• "EXP DATE" or "EXP": The most widely used format for supplements, vitamins, skincare, and non-food products on Amazon. Clean, universally understood, and exactly what Amazon FBA warehouse staff and customers expect to see.
• "EXPIRY DATE": Full wording version of EXP. More formal — works well for pharmaceutical-adjacent products or anything where you want the label to look clinical and authoritative.
• "SELL BY": Used in retail contexts — it's a signal to the seller/retailer, not necessarily the consumer. Not commonly used for FBA since Amazon fulfills directly to consumers, but it's included here for completeness if your brand uses it.
• "BEST BY": American equivalent of "Best Before" — common on packaged food and snacks in the US market. Same meaning, different phrasing for the target market.

💡Practical Tips for Expiry Date Labeling

• Apply before creating your FBA shipment, not after: Once you've created a shipment and printed box labels, the last thing you want to do is reopen everything to add expiry stickers. Build expiry labeling into your receiving workflow — when product comes in, check the date, and if it needs a label, apply it then. Much less painful than doing it as a separate step before every shipment.
• Use the same date format consistently across your entire catalog: If you switch between MM/YYYY on some products and MM/DD/YYYY on others, Amazon's receiving system can flag inconsistencies. Pick one format for your business and stick with it. MM/YYYY is the most common choice for most FBA sellers because it's simpler and less error-prone to apply manually.
• Print the date clearly — don't make it tiny: I've seen sellers print expiry dates in 6-point font on a label that's otherwise full of text. Amazon's staff need to be able to read it quickly. The date should be the dominant element on the label, not buried in fine print.
• Don't cover the manufacturer's barcode or FNSKU: If the product already has a printed expiry date in the wrong format, put the corrected label next to the original, not over the UPC or FNSKU. You want both the corrected date AND the scannable barcode to remain accessible.
• For lot-tracked products, include the lot number too: Amazon only requires the date, but some categories (baby products, supplements) benefit from including the lot number on the label too. It makes recalls and quality investigations much easier. This tool has an optional product name field that you can use to include lot info.

🏆Expiry Date Label Options Compared

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