Overview
- Authors who mark their ebooks as DRM-free in Kindle Direct Publishing will see them offered as EPUB and PDF starting January 20, 2026.
- The DRM decision remains an author-controlled setting and previously published works will not change unless updated in the KDP portal.
- Switching an older title to DRM-free requires checking an explicit acknowledgment that buyers can download the book as a PDF or EPUB file.
- Amazon says updates to a book’s DRM status can take up to 72 hours to appear on Amazon.com after authors make the change.
- The policy arrives after recent Kindle software updates tightened device-level protections, including removing USB transfers and adding a new DRM system on 11th- and 12th‑generation devices that blocks standard backups.