When KDP, Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play and D2D actually pay you

About 60 days after the end of the month the sale was reported in, as long as you have met the minimum for your payment method. So a sale reported in January is normally paid at the end of March. Sales made through Expanded Distribution run on a longer lag of about 90 days. Amazon says the payment date is not the arrival date either: a direct deposit takes another 1 to 5 business days to show in your bank, and 7 to 10 if your bank is in India. Only wire and check payments have a minimum to clear, and Amazon sets that minimum per marketplace in that marketplace's own currency, so a wide author can be over the line on Amazon.com and still waiting on Amazon.co.uk.

About 45 days after the end of the month, with payments going out on the 15th. So a January that cleared the payment threshold is sent on March 15. Kobo says it can then take another 5 to 7 business days to deposit into your account, depending on your bank, so the date you are paid and the date the money shows up are not the same day. If a month does not reach CAD $50 the earnings roll into the next month instead.

No later than 45 days following the first Friday of each month. Apple works on a fiscal calendar rather than calendar months, so the period a payment covers is the one printed on the report itself. Apple says it combines what it can into a single payment, so one deposit is the usual case rather than a promise. It pays one bank account per financial report currency, so an author who is paid in more than one currency can correctly receive more than one deposit for the same month.

On the 15th of each month, or the next business day, covering the previous calendar month. So January sales are normally paid on February 15. That is the shortest wait of the five platforms on this page, and it is the reason Google Play money can land before you have even been paid for the same month anywhere else. Google says your bank can then take up to another 15 business days to register the payment, so the money leaves first and can still show up later than you planned for. Google puts sales, refunds and chargebacks from that month into the one payment, so a month with returns pays less than the sales rows alone come to.

In two stages, because Draft2Digital is an aggregator rather than a store. First the store pays D2D, which D2D says usually takes 30 to 60 days after the sales month for ebooks and audiobooks and up to 90 days for print. Then D2D sends your share on or around the 15th of the following month. Its own worked example is a book sold on January 1, paid by the store to D2D on March 1, and paid on to the author on March 15. D2D also charges a fee on PayPal and check payments, so the amount that lands is a little under the royalty figure. PayPal takes 2.5% of the royalties paid, capped at $1.50 in the US and $25 outside it, and a check costs a flat $2.50 on a US address or $4.00 on a non-US one. Those are the only two methods D2D names a processing fee for.

It depends on the store and on how you take the money, and it is the most common reason a month with real sales pays nothing at all. Amazon KDP splits it by payment method. Direct deposit has no minimum. Wire and check payments build up to a minimum first, and Amazon sets that minimum per marketplace in that marketplace's own currency, so 100 USD on Amazon.com and 100 GBP on Amazon.co.uk. Kobo Writing Life needs CAD $50, and a month under that rolls forward into the next one instead. Apple Books depends on your bank country and account currency: the US, UK, Canada, Australia, Japan and the euro zone are all US $0.02, so in practice there is no minimum, and bank territories not on that list are US $40. Google Play Books needs $1.00 for an electronic transfer in US dollars, other currencies are in a similar range, and a wire transfer needs $100. Draft2Digital is set by how you take the money: $10 for direct deposit or PayPal, $20 for international direct deposit or Payoneer, and $100 for a check.

Usually because one deposit is not one month. Expanded Distribution pays on a longer lag, Prime Reading bonuses appear only on the Payment report, returns come back out in a later month than the sale, and anything under a store threshold is held and added to a later payment. Any one of those will make a report and a deposit disagree without anyone having made a mistake.

On Amazon, not always the month you launched in. Amazon keeps pre-orders in a report of their own and says that data will not appear in your other reports until the book reaches customers on its release date. Release dates are struck in GMT, and Amazon's own example is a June 1 release where US pre-orders process on May 31 and appear in the May sales report rather than June. So a launch month that looks empty is usually a launch month that was booked in the previous report, and Amazon says to go and look there, under the Pre-order transaction type. That is Amazon's rule, not a general one, so do not assume the other four stores on this page work the same way.

Because the rate is the store's, not the market's. A month with sales in several currencies converts at a rate you did not pick, set by the store on its own schedule. Look up a rate on a currency site and multiply and you will get a number that is close and wrong, so reconcile against the converted figure the store gives you rather than one of your own. This is one more reason a deposit and a report can disagree without anyone having made a mistake. How much each store publishes about the rate it used varies from store to store.

Amazon announces the Kindle Unlimited global fund near the 15th of the following month, and what it announces is a fund total rather than a per page rate. Your page reads are counted during the month, but Amazon says those counts are not final until around the 15th either, so what they are worth is not settled until after the month ends. Amazon calls those counts Kindle Edition Normalized Pages, or KENP, which is the column name on your report. Reconciling KU before that announcement will always show a difference.

It divides, and it does it separately for each marketplace. Amazon says the rate for a marketplace is that marketplace share of the KDP Select Global Fund divided by all the Kindle Edition Normalized Pages, or KENP, read there that month. Two things follow, and both of them make a month look wrong. The rate is not known until the fund is announced near the 15th of the following month, and it changes every month, so the rate you saw last month is only an estimate for this one. Amazon says many authors estimate that way and that the real number will differ. It also means one month of reading can pay several different per page rates at once, because a read on Amazon.com and a read on Amazon.co.uk are priced out of different pools.

Because Amazon caps what one reader can earn you on one book, and it only counts a first read. Amazon says authors can earn a maximum of 3,000 Kindle Edition Normalized Pages, or KENP, read per title per customer, so a long book stops earning from that reader once it passes the cap. Amazon also says it will only pay you for the number of pages read the first time the customer reads them, so a reread adds nothing. One more thing moves the number: Amazon measures from the Start Reading Location, which it says it typically sets at chapter 1, through to the end of the book, so your front matter is not counted, and Amazon says the result can differ from the page count shown on your book's Amazon detail page. None of that is a mistake to chase. It is why a KENP total can look low against a book you know was read all the way through.

If you are not a US person, Amazon applies 30% US tax withholding to eBook sales on Amazon.com and to print sales on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.jp, Amazon.com.au and Amazon.ca, and it says that includes payments from the KDP Select Global Fund. If your country of permanent residence has an income tax treaty with the United States you may qualify for a lower rate, which you claim in your tax profile. That claim rides on a W-8 form, and Amazon says the form expires on the last day of the third calendar year after you sign it, at which point a reduced rate defaults back to 30%. Two marketplaces also have their own separate rules: Amazon.com.br carries Brazilian withholding and Amazon.in carries Singaporean withholding. This is Amazon only. Every other platform on this page has its own withholding rules, answered separately, and they pay from different countries under different rules.

Yes, if you are not a US author. Draft2Digital says it is required to withhold 30% income tax for all international publishers and send it to the IRS, and that it does this by default. If your country has a tax treaty with the United States you can claim a lower rate, but only after you take the D2D tax interview and file a W-8 form, most often a W-8BEN. Two details matter for reconciling a month. D2D says you must have valid tax information on file before you can be paid at all, and it says that if you have more than one payment method enabled you must take the tax interview for each payment method. Because Draft2Digital pays you directly, this rule covers sales made on other stores too. This is Draft2Digital only. Every other platform on this page has its own rules, answered separately.

Not US tax, and this is the one that surprises authors who also publish on Amazon. Kobo says it does not issue tax forms such as 1099s or W-8BENs, because it is a Canadian company operating under Canadian tax laws rather than US tax laws, and it says it does not have the processes in place to withhold US taxes. Kobo describes itself as your distribution partner and says you are responsible for understanding and fulfilling your tax obligations based on your local laws, so income tax is yours to declare where you live. Sales tax is the part Kobo does handle, and it is the part that moves your number. Kobo says it collects VAT or GST at the point of sale and sends it on to the tax authority. In VAT territories the price you set already includes the VAT, so Kobo takes the VAT out first and works your royalty percentage out from what is left. That is why a Kobo month can look small against the list price even though nothing was withheld from you. This is Kobo only, and the no-withholding part is about US tax specifically. Every other platform on this page has its own rules, answered separately.

Sometimes, and Apple is the one platform here that publishes no percentage at all. Apple says the withholding tax is the amount it holds back and sends to the tax authorities under the rules of a particular territory, and that it is specific to the stores where the sales happened and to where the money is being sent. It says the amount varies with your location, with whichever optional tax forms you have filed, and with the tax treaties your country has. So two authors with the same sales can be withheld different amounts, and neither of them can work it out from a rate. The useful part is that Apple itemises it. Withholding tax is its own line on the Payments page next to what you earned, any input tax added back, and the exchange rate, so the gap between your report and your deposit is written down rather than hidden. Two country rules are worth knowing because they run in opposite directions. If you are based outside Brazil and do not upload a tax residency certificate, Apple says your sales in Brazil can be withheld at the standard rate, and that the rate is not reduced until the certificate has been received and reviewed, even though you can already be selling. If you are based in Mexico, Apple says the withholding income tax applies to your total monthly worldwide sales, not just your Mexican ones. This is Apple only. Every other platform on this page has its own rules, answered separately.

Yes, if US tax rules reach you, and the thing to understand is which earnings the tax lands on rather than the rate. Google says that if it does not have a valid tax form from you it may apply backup withholding at 24%, or chapter 3 withholding at 30%, on payments it makes to you. Those are two different taxes on two different amounts. The 24% is the one that reaches your whole month: Google says that without complete tax information it deducts up to 24% of your total earnings worldwide, and it spells out that this is not just your US earnings. The 30% is narrower. Google says that once you are properly documented as a non-US author, only the part of your revenue earned from US readers is subject to US withholding at all. A tax treaty can reduce the rate further, but only if you are a tax resident of a country that has one with the US and you file a valid form claiming it. Google says you can find the amount actually withheld in your monthly earnings report, and that withholding does not show up in the Play Books analytics at all, which is why a deposit can disagree with the dashboard. This is Google only. Every other platform on this page has its own rules, answered separately.

Sooner than you get paid, and that gap is the point. On four of the five platforms the report or the raw sales data lands weeks before the money does. Google Play posts the month earnings report 5 business days after the month ends but pays on the 15th of the next month. Apple Books makes monthly reports available five days after the end of the month and pays no later than 45 days after the first Friday. Kobo uploads the sales report on the 25th for the previous month and pays about 45 days after the month ends. Amazon generates the Prior Months Royalties report near the 15th and pays about 60 days after the month. Draft2Digital shows most sales daily but its records are not final until the store has actually paid. So you can nearly always check the numbers long before you can spend them.

It depends which report you mean, and Amazon publishes a different answer for each one. The Dashboard is updated every 15 minutes, though Amazon says ebook and Kindle Unlimited orders update within 24 hours after the order is placed and print orders within 24 hours after the order ships. The KENP Read report and the Prior Months Royalties report are both updated near the 15th of every month, and Amazon says the Prior Months Royalties report is generated near the 15th of each month. The Payments report is the slow one: Amazon says it is updated 60 days after the end of the month in which the sale was reported, and about 90 days for Expanded Distribution. So the near real time number and the settled number are two different reports, and only the second one matches your deposit.

Apple publishes a schedule by report type. Daily reports are available the following day, weekly reports are available on Mondays, and monthly reports are available five days after the end of the month. Apple also says summary sales reports are available by 6 in the morning in the time zone of the agreement and the territories that report covers, and that when a report covers several time zones the timing follows the latest one. Worth knowing before you go looking for an old month: Apple says daily, weekly and monthly reports are saved for one year after they become available, and that it does not store or regenerate them after that.

Kobo is the only one of the five that names a calendar date. It says sales reports are uploaded on the 25th of each month for the previous month sales, and gives its own example: you will receive January sales report by February 25th. That is separate from the dashboard, which Kobo describes as a live estimate of sales and tells you not to treat as definitive. Kobo is explicit that the dashboard does not take into account coupon codes, discounts, refunds or other transaction level variations, and that it does not track Kobo Plus or OverDrive sales at all. So the dashboard is for a quick look and the monthly report is the one to reconcile against.

Google splits it in two. It says earnings reports are available 5 business days after the month ends, and that if more than 5 days have passed without one you should check that your tax information is correct. Sales data is much faster: Google says transaction and summary reports appear one to two business days after the transaction. One thing that trips people up when a day looks wrong: Google says the dates are shown in the Pacific time zone, so a sale made on January 1 in Europe can appear with a December 31 date in the report.

Draft2Digital says that for most stores your sales should show up daily, usually around mid morning US time. It is careful that this is not a promise it fully controls: it says different store partners provide data at differing intervals and that it posts sales numbers as soon as they are made available to it. There is a second and more important date. Draft2Digital says sales records only become final once the reporting store has delivered a royalty payment for those sales, and that vendors often delay 30 to 90 days after a sale before paying. So an early Draft2Digital number is real information, but it is not settled money yet.

Five things explain most of it, and all five are already answered on this page. Start with which report you are reading, because a dashboard estimate and a settled payments report are two different numbers and only the settled one matches your deposit, so check the settled report before you treat a drop in the estimate as an error. Then currency, because a month with sales in several countries is converted at the store rate on the store schedule, and working it out yourself from a rate you looked up gives a number that is close and wrong. Then returns, because a refunded copy usually comes back out in a later month than the sale went in, which leaves both months looking wrong. Then thresholds, because wire and check payments build up to a minimum first and Amazon sets that minimum separately for each marketplace, so one country can pay you while another sits and waits. And then the longer lag, because Amazon says sales through Expanded Distribution run about 90 days rather than about 60. Every one of those is sourced to the platform official page above.

No. They are what each platform publishes, and nearly all of them hedge, with words like approximately, on or around, or no later than. Thresholds, tax paperwork, and your bank all move the real date. Each row in the table above links to that platform official page, and terms do change, so check the source before you rely on a date. We last checked all five on September 25, 2026.