No wonder, then, that Amazon will soon end its Prime Invitee Program. This program allowed members to share their free shipping privileges with others residing outside their households. Starting October 1, 2025, the company will require invited guests who do not reside with the account holder to obtain their own Prime membership.
The announcement coincides with Amazon starting to alert users about this major shift. Introduced in 2020, the Prime Invitee Program has become wildly popular with subscribers. They absolutely adore sharing their free shipping privileges with their friends and family. In this decision, Amazon seems focused on reducing the complexity of its membership.
“We are writing to inform you that the Prime Invitee Program, which allowed sharing Prime’s fast, free delivery with others, will end on October 1, 2025,” Amazon stated in a notice to its users. Further, the company has committed to directly informing any invited guests of the program’s end by September 5, 2025.
As we noted last week, Amazon has had a hard time bringing on new Prime signups recently—particularly within the United States. Press reports indicate that new subscriptions came in well below last year’s totals. They were still failing to meet the company’s own internal goals. It’s possible this downward trend is partly responsible for Amazon’s move to make it harder to lose a membership.
In line with this change, Amazon has stated that Prime members need to be mindful of their household address when spreading the joy of their benefits. The company clarified, “address you consider to be your home and where you spend the majority of your time.”
Specifically, Amazon has done away with the Prime Invitee Program. This move represents quite a change going in the opposite direction towards a much more restrictive approach to its membership benefits. This legislative shift has the potential to increase the total number of subscriptions substantially. Non-household members will now need to enroll in the service themselves to receive the shipping discounts.