Does Amazon Relay accept cargo vans? No — and here is the full picture

Checked October 2026

The short answer: no. Amazon Relay does not accept cargo vans or sprinter vans, in any market, under any program on that board. Amazon's own truck-requirements page says it in plain words: "Cargo vans cannot be used for loads on Amazon Relay." Drivers keep asking because Relay is famous and the pay stories are loud. For a cargo van, it is a closed door, and knowing that saves you the weeks other drivers spend applying.

What Amazon Relay actually is

Relay is Amazon's board for its middle-mile freight — pallets moving between Amazon buildings. That freight is built for dock-height trucks, so Relay takes tractors pulling 53-foot trailers and 16-foot and 26-foot box trucks with a working liftgate. The loads are pallet-sized, the buildings are dock-sized, and a cargo van simply does not fit the freight.

Even for the trucks it takes, Relay has a high gate. A carrier needs a DOT number and MC operating authority that has been active for at least 180 days, a clean safety record, and insurance at Amazon's limits — $1,000,000 in auto liability and $100,000 in cargo cover are the headline numbers. New authorities are turned away by the calendar alone.

Where Amazon's work for smaller vehicles actually lives

Amazon does buy small-vehicle delivery, just not on Relay. Amazon Flex hires drivers with their own cars and cargo vans to run delivery blocks from local stations — that is gig work, claimed block by block in an app. Delivery Service Partners are companies that run Amazon routes with their own fleets and hire drivers as employees. Neither one is a board where a cargo van owner books freight.

If your plan was "get on Relay," the honest rewrite is this: Relay is a reason to buy a box truck someday, not a door for the cargo van you own today.

The doors that are open to your cargo van today

Distributors, supply houses, warehouses, and local businesses that ship small goods give work to cargo vans every day, in every city, with no 180-day wait. That is the freight shaped like your vehicle.