Listing duration

A listing's duration is the time (expressed in days) that the listing will be active on the eBay markeplace.

For auction listings, the listing ends and the winning bidder is determined when this time has passed (and the highest bid matches or exceeds reserve price, if set).

The duration for all fixed-price listings is always Good 'Til Cancelled which means the listing will live until quantity is 0. However, if the Out-of-Stock feature is enabled, even fixed-price listings with 0 quantity will remain active but are hidden from search results. The seller would need to add quantity to the listing in order for the listing to again show up in search results and in the view item page. Refer to Out-of-Stock Control for additional information.

The allowed durations of listing types vary slightly per country and by category. For most marketplaces with support for eBay APIs, the standard listing duration values for an auction listing is 3, 5, 7, and 10 days, with some eBay marketplaces allowing 1-day auction listings for time-sensitive items like event tickets.

For fixed-price listings, the only supported listing duration for all marketplaces is Good 'Til Cancelled (GTC) where the fixed-price listing stays alive as long as the listing still has inventory. The following categories are an exception to this GTC-only rule:

• The following eBay Motors US categories:
  • Cars & Trucks (6001)
  • Motorcycles (6024)
  • Other Vehicles & Trailers (6038)
  • Boats (26429)
  • Powersports (66466)
• All child categories under Cars, Motorcycles & Vehicles (9800) categories on the eBay UK and eBay Italy marketplaces.

For marketplaces that support the classified ad format for some categories, including US, Germany, Philippines, and Singapore, the most common listing duration is 30 days, but allowed values can vary by marketplace and by category, especially for real estate and motor vehicle classified ads.

To retrieve the allowed listing duration values for auction, fixed-price, and classified ad listings, call GetCategoryFeatures with the value of FeatureID set to ListingDurations. The SiteID value for the seller's country should be passed in as a header.

For additional information about listing durations, refer to How to find valid ListingDurations for the different types of items on each site.

Argument: Item.ListingDuration