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Program news

We hope everyone is well. We want to take this time to share with you some eBay Developers. Program updates from the recent quarter (April - June 2025).

Semi-annual survey

Our semi-annual survey remains available until July 20. You can directly access the survey here, and the link is also available through a banner at the top of developer.ebay.com. We encourage everyone to take the survey if you have not already, and we truly value your feedback!

Free support now open to all developers

The eBay Developers Program now offers Free Support to all developers. Start off with the AI-Assisted Support tool on the https://developer.ebay.com/my/support/tickets page to try to get your question answered. If your question is not adequately answered, you can proceed to create a Technical Support ticket free of charge. It is no longer necessary to purchase support hours.

Update to API License Agreement

An updated API License Agreement was posted to our portal on June 24, 2025. We have made significant enhancements to our API License Agreement, including detailed data protection measures and compliance with international regulations. Important restrictions have been applied to the use of Restricted APIs and AI content. All developers are expected to be in full compliance with the API License Agreement, so be sure to take some time to read the updated document.

New Parts & Accessories Return Policy

Starting on July 15, Parts & Accessories listings on the US marketplace (that meet criteria) must offer free returns to buyers with a return period of 30 days or longer. Here are the criteria for this policy.

  • The item is listed on eBay Motors through a fixed price listing and is physically located in the US.
  • The item is being shipped to a buyer in the US.
  • The price of the item is more than $10.
  • The item's condition is New or New Other.

Starting on July 15, the return policy used for all listings created or modified through eBay APIs will be automatically updated (if necessary) with the seller as the return shipping cost payer and the return period set to 30 days. A warning will be returned in API responses indicating that this action was taken by eBay. Starting in late August, API calls to create or modify Parts & Accessories listings with a non-compliant return policy will be blocked, and the developer must make the necessary update to the return policy and try the API call again.

eBay will be offering sellers eBay return shipping labels at a discount of 50 percent.

Parts & Accessories categories featuring larger items will be exempt from this requirement.

See the P&A Returns Policy Seller Center News Topic for more information on this policy.

Fashion Pre-owned item conditions expanding

The three 'Pre-owned' item conditions will be expanded to an additional 159 leaf categories, including women's handbags, accessories, jewelry, and shoes. Support for these conditions in these categories will go live in Australia on July 23, and globally to all eBay marketplaces on August 5.

As a reminder, here are the three Condition IDs (used in Trading API) and Condition Enums (used in Inventory API) to use for the 'Pre-owned' item conditions:

Condition Name

Condition ID value

Condition Enum value

Pre-owned - Excellent

2990

PRE_OWNED_EXCELLENT

Pre-owned - Good

3000

USED_EXCELLENT

Pre-owned - Fair

3010

PRE_OWNED_FAIR

The item condition metadata in the getItemConditionPolicies method of the Metadata API has been updated for the newly supported leaf categories.

Certified Open Box program

As announced in the May 2025 Seller Updates, eBay now has a Certified Open Box program to enhance buyer trust. This program is open to all Above Standard and Top Rated Sellers. Eligible categories include Cell Phones, Smartwatches, Laptops, Vacuum cleaners, Appliances, Tablets, Headphones, Tools, and Video game consoles. Listing requirements include the following:

  • Item condition set to 'Open Box' (Condition ID 1500 in Trading API and NEW_OTHER in Inventory API)
  • Free shipping/delivery
  • 30-day free returns

Sellers must also meet the following service metrics:

  • Item Not as Described rate below 4 percent
  • Item Not Received rate below 1 percent
  • A minimum of 25 Open Box transactions every 3 months

See the May 2025 Seller Updates for more details and the complete list of eligible categories.

New Mexico import regulations

As announced in the April 2025 Seller Updates, sellers shipping items to Mexico must provide the following information to the shipping carrier handling the shipment to Mexico:

  • Recipient's full name
  • Recipient's email address
  • Recipient's phone number
  • Recipient's Mexican Tax ID (RFC) or National ID (CURP). Buyers in Mexico are required to provide one of the these tax IDs, and this tax ID information should be available in the Order Report
  • Detailed item description

API updates

The following updates have been made to our APIs this quarter.

New image methods added to Media API

A new image resource with the following three new methods was added to the Media API to support the upload of eBay Picture Services (EPS) images to a seller's account:

  • createImageFromFile: This method uploads an image file to eBay Picture Services (EPS) using multipart/form-data, and returns an EPS image URL that can be used when creating listings through APIs. See the createImageFromFile reference documentation for supported file types.
  • createImageFromUrl : An image URL is specified in the request payload of this method, and if that image file is successfully downloaded by eBay, an eBay Picture Services (EPS) version of that image will be created, and the EPS image URL will be returned in the response. See the createImageFromUrl reference documentation for supported file types.
  • getImage: This method is used to retrieve the EPS image URL associated with the image and the image's expiration date. EPS URLs will be purged from a seller's account if they are not used in an eBay listing for more than 30 days.

Metadata API updates

A new getCurrencies method was added to the Metadata API that returns the default currency used by a specific eBay marketplace.

Additionally, the eanSupport, isbnSupport, and upcSupport fields were added to getCategoryPolicies method. These three fields indicate whether or not listings in a leaf category on an eBay marketplace support or even require an EAN, ISBN, or UPC value, respectively.

Finally, the getMotorsListingPolicies method was updated with the following two fields:

  • kTypeSupported: a boolean field to indicate whether or not a motor vehicles category supports the use of a K type value to identify the cars or trucks compatible with a Parts and Accessories item. Only the UK, Germany, Australia, France, Italy, and Spain marketplaces support the use of K type values.
  • minItemCompatibility: the integer value in this field indicates the minimum number of compatible vehicles or applications must be specified for a Parts and Accessories item.

New CBT feed type added to Buy Feed v1 API

A new cross-border trade feed type called CBT_ITEM_ALL_ACTIVE was added to the Buy Feed v1 API. With this feed type, listings that were sourced from major eBay marketplaces (e.g. US, UK, and Germany) will be included in the downloaded feed file. Currently, this feedtype is supported for the eBay Austria and eBay Ireland marketplaces.

Unlike the other feed types that return a TSV gzipped file, the CBT_ITEM_ALL_ACTIVE feed type file is returned Avro format.

The following schema changes have been introduced to support the new CBT_ITEM_ALL_ACTIVE feed type:

Behavior changes for updateCampaignBudget method

Two behavior changes were implemented for the updateCampaignBudget method of the Sell Marketing API. The updateCampaignBudget method is used to update the daily budget for a Promoted LIsting Priority campaign.

The updateCampaignBudget method can be used a maximum of 15 times per campaign, per calendar day to update the daily cost-per-click budget. Two warning messages have been added, with one warning message being triggered on the 14th update of the day, and another  warning message being triggered on the 15th (last) update of the day. A blocking error will occur on the 16th try, and the user will have to wait until the next calendar day to make the next update for the campaign.

Users of this method must also increase or decrease the daily budget by at least 0.50 USD, or an error will be triggered.

Common Charger Directive Phase 2

As part of EU's Common Charger Directive (CCD) that went into effect at the end of 2024, sellers in the EU and Northern Ireland listing certain rechargeable devices (such as portable electronic devices) are expected to provide the following information through product aspects:

  • Whether or not the item comes with a charger
  • The item's charging power range
  • Whether or not the item is USB-PD compatible

In 'Phase 2' of this project, eBay has made modifications to the product aspects used to provide CCD information. These changes rolled out in April, and the metadata returned in the getItemAspectsForCategory method for the affected categories was updated. The table below covers the changes from 'Phase 1' to 'Phase 2'

Phase 1: CCD Aspect Changes

Phase 2: CCD Aspect Changes

Charger Included and:

Charger Not Included added as new values for Features aspect

New aspect

Charger Included, with Yes/No as supported values

Charging Power Range aspect added

Updated aspect name

Device Charging Range, with a charging range such as 10-20.5 (in watts)

USB-PD compatible added as new value for Features aspect

Updated aspect value

USB-PD (fast charging) replaces USB-PD compatible as new value for Features aspect

See the Common Charger Directive integration guide topic for more information, including examples of how these aspects (aka item specifics) are passed in through the Inventory API and Trading API.

In addition to returning the CCD-related metadata, the getItemAspectsForCategory method was updated with a aspectAdvancedDataType field, and this field will be returned for the Device Charging Range aspect with a value of NUMERIC_RANGE, to indicate that the value for the aspect is expected to be a numeric range.

Energy efficiency labels updates

The energy efficiency label (EEK) requirement in EU countries and Northern Ireland now applies to Smart phones and Tablets categories.

Specifying EEK information for Smart phones and Tablets is similar to how it works for Appliance categories. See the Energy Efficiency information topic for more details about specifying EEK information.

The getRegulatoryPolicies method in the Metadata API can be used to see which categories support, recommend, or require EEK information.

Finances API updates

The following three updates were made to the Finances API:

  • 5-year time constraint: The getPayouts and getPayout methods can no longer retrieve seller payouts older than five years, and no seller payouts older than five years will be considered in the counts and dollar values returned in the getPayoutSummary method. The getTransactions and getTransfer methods can no longer retrieve any transactions older than five years, and no transactions older than five years will be considered in the counts and dollar values returned in the getTransactionSummary method.
  • 36-month date range constraint: The date range filters in the getPayouts, getPayoutSummary, getTransactions, and getTransactionSummary methods.
  • New REGULATORY_OPERATING_FEE: As applicable, this new fee will be charged to sellers to cover the costs associated with regulatory requirements in specific marketplaces. See the eBay UK help topic for more information on this fee.

Buy Feed Beta API now supports Poland affiliate links

The getItemFeed and getItemSnapshotFeed methods will now return affiliate links for the eBay Poland marketplace (as applicable) through the itemAffiliateWebUrl field.

New count field for Developer Analytics API

The getRateLimits method now returns a new count field to indicate how many times an application (without a user context) has made a call to an endpoint/resource during the current time period,  and the getUserRateLimits method now returns a new count field to indicate how many times an application has made a call to the endpoint/resource on behalf of an eBay user during the current time period.

Search string limitation for search APIs

Search strings over 100 characters specified through the q query parameter of the search method of the Marketplace Insights API or the search method of the Browse API will be automatically truncated, and may result in unexpected results.

eBay deprecation and decommission updates

The following APIs were decommissioned in Q2:

  • The addProducts, findProductsByCompatibility, and getProductSubmissions calls of the Product API
  • The getProductMetadataBulk, getProductSearchDataVersion, getProductSearchNames, getProductSearchValues, and getProductSearchValuesBulk calls of the Product Metadata API
  • The GetCategoryMappings call of the Trading API

The ExtendSiteHostedPictures call of the Trading API will be decommissioned on July 28, 2025.

The GetCategoryFeatures call was announced as deprecated and will be decommissioned on May 4, 2026. See the GetCategoryFeatures Migration Guide for more information on which new Metadata API methods will be used as alternatives to GetCategoryFeatures.

The GetCategories call was announced as deprecated and will be decommissioned on March 31, 2026. See the GetCategories Migration Guide for more information on migrating to new REST API alternatives.

We hope everyone had a great first half of 2025, and we are looking forward to working with the community for the rest of the year!