What is being reported
Shopee is rolling out a new Technical Support Fee of 5% across four markets: Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. Multiple sellers-facing publications, including bigseller.com and forestshipping.com, cite a Shopee seller notice dated 24 December 2025 as the source, with the fee taking effect in February 2026.
The fee is described as an automatic deduction from completed order revenue. If an order is partially returned, the fee recalculates against whatever portion of the order completed. Refunds issued after an order has already completed do not trigger a fee refund, per the notice text quoted by forestshipping.com.
The ad credit offset
Shopee is reportedly offering eligible sellers advertising credit worth up to 5% of order value during the transition, intended to cushion the new fee. An ad credit is not cash. It only offsets margin if the seller was already planning to spend on Shopee ads at a similar volume. The credit disappears the moment the transition window ends. The 5% fee itself does not.
A seller should not treat the ad credit as a permanent wash against the fee. Model the fee’s effect on contribution margin as if the credit did not exist, then treat any credit received as a temporary bonus.
What to do before February 2026
Log into Shopee Seller Centre directly and check the account-level fee schedule rather than relying on this or any other secondary report for the exact scope. If the fee applies, run it through a per-order contribution margin calculation before the effective date, not after the first payout shows an unexpected deduction.
Check Seller Centre directly for whether your seller type is in scope. That detail is not settled by any source available at the time of writing.
Research Ledger (5 claims)
| Entity | Claim | Source | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shopee | New 5% Technical Support Fee announced in a seller notice dated 24 December 2025, taking effect February 2026 | bigseller.com and forestshipping.com, both citing the Shopee notice text directly | INFERRED |
| Shopee | Fee applies in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam | bigseller.com, forestshipping.com, ecer.com, all consistent | INFERRED |
| Shopee | Fee is deducted automatically from completed order revenue, recalculated on partial returns | forestshipping.com, quoting the Shopee notice | INFERRED |
| Shopee | Shopee is offering ad credits worth up to 5% of order value to eligible sellers during rollout, as partial offset | bigseller.com, forestshipping.com | INFERRED |
| Shopee | Official Seller Education Hub pages for Singapore and Malaysia sit behind seller login, no public page confirms the fee independently as of this writing | seller.shopee.sg, seller.shopee.com.my, both required authentication when checked directly | VERIFIED (login gate itself, not the fee terms) |
No row here reached Shopee’s own public seller-fee page, since Shopee’s Seller Centre fee pages require login. That gap is stated plainly rather than papered over. Every figure below is reported as a claim from secondary coverage of a Shopee seller notice, not confirmed against Shopee’s own public documentation. One claim found during research, which seller types the fee applies to, is left out of this brief entirely: two sources reporting on the same notice gave contradicting scopes, one said cross-border sellers only, the other said all seller types, and neither could be verified against Shopee’s own page. Rather than print a disputed claim, it is dropped here. Check your own Seller Centre account for that detail.