How to Set Up Amazon Household

An Amazon Prime membership costs money every month or year, but you do not have to pay for two memberships for two adults in the same house. Amazon Household is a free feature that lets one Prime member share most of their Prime benefits with one other adult — and also with up to four children — all under one household arrangement.

The benefits that carry over to the other adult include free two-day shipping on Prime-eligible items, access to Prime Video streaming, Prime Reading (a selection of free books and magazines), and Amazon Photos cloud storage. Essentially, your household partner gets nearly everything you get with Prime without needing their own paid membership.

Each adult in the household keeps their own completely separate Amazon account. Your order history, payment methods, browsing history, and Alexa settings remain private and separate. You are sharing the Prime benefits, not merging your accounts. This means you keep your own wish lists, your own purchase history, and your own recommendations.

Child profiles are slightly different — they can be given access to age-appropriate content and spending controls can be set. Parents can review and approve purchases made by child accounts.

To set up Amazon Household, you need to start at amazon.com on a computer or in the Amazon app. Both adults need to verify their Amazon accounts during setup, which requires both people to be present or both to confirm the invitation from their own devices.

One important note: the other adult you add must actually live in the same household — Amazon's terms of service require this. Amazon may periodically ask you to verify the arrangement. Both adults also agree to share payment methods during setup, which means each person can see the other's credit and debit cards saved to Amazon — though each person's own purchases remain separate.