Dennis had to remove 4,530 from its official ABC figure because they were free copies of the magazine that were distributed too late for inclusion.
A Dennis spokeswoman said that problems with a distribution partner meant that copies were received around two days later than their newsstand date.
The Audit Bureau of Circulation's final audit of Maxim's July-December 2005 figure revealed the problems had affected an average of 4,530 monitored free distribution copies, which were therefore subtracted from Maxim's ABC.
Dennis has already stripped out bulk and monitored free distribution copies for Maxim and Men's Fitness in time for the next set of ABC figures, for January to June 2006.
Viz and Bizarre's ABC figures were already free of these copies. The spokeswoman said that Dennis would keep sampling other titles such as Poker Player and Total Gambler.
Bruce Sandell, managing director of Dennis Consumer, said: "We have been working with the ABC to speedily resolve this discrepancy, as we value clarity and so do our advertisers. Our decision to go bulk free was initiated through our commitment to clarity."
Due to the revised figure, Maxim's circulation dropped 18.2% from 227,377 in the first half of 2005, rather than 16.2%.
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