Amazon Prime Limits Free Shipping to Household Members Starting October
Big changes are coming for Amazon Prime members this October. If you’ve been used to sharing your Prime shipping perks with friends or relatives outside your home, that convenience is about to end. Amazon has announced that its “Prime Invitee” program, which has allowed members to extend free shipping benefits to non-household contacts for over 15 years, will officially be phased out starting October 1.
The program, originally launched back in 2009, has been a popular way for Prime members to let family and friends enjoy fast and free shipping without paying for a separate membership. But now, Amazon is shifting its focus entirely toward its Amazon Family program. Under this structure, benefits can still be shared—but only with one other adult in the household, up to four teens added before April 7, 2025, and up to four children profiles. Essentially, the flexibility to share perks outside the home is being eliminated, while the household-sharing options are being reinforced.
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This means that the core perks of Amazon Prime—fast and free delivery on eligible items, access to exclusive deals and Prime events, Prime Video, Prime Reading, and third-party benefits like Grubhub—will now be strictly limited to household members. While the change is subtle for some, it’s expected to impact families and friends who have long relied on the ability to share shipping perks across households.
Amazon has not provided updated membership numbers during its recent earnings call, but the company emphasized that last month’s Prime Day was its “biggest Prime Day shopping event yet,” surpassing previous four-day periods in both sales volume and number of items sold. Independent sellers, many of them small and medium-sized businesses, also saw record sales during this shopping event, showing just how central Prime has become to e-commerce activity.
Currently, an Amazon Prime membership costs $139 per year in the U.S., up from $119 a couple of years ago. Analysts, including Doug Anmuth from J.P. Morgan, have suggested that another price hike could be on the horizon in 2026, as the company continues to expand its services and invest in new initiatives, like AI data centers in rural Pennsylvania and expanded same-day delivery for perishable foods in over a thousand cities.
So, for Prime members, the takeaway is clear: starting in October, free shipping and other Prime benefits will be strictly for household members. Friends outside your home will no longer be able to enjoy those perks unless they have their own membership. While the change may feel inconvenient to some, Amazon is doubling down on the household model to streamline benefits and focus on family-oriented sharing, ensuring the Prime experience is still robust and comprehensive—but now strictly under one roof.
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