AliExpress fined almost $630 million over illegal product sales
The European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million (about $629 million) for violating the Digital Services Act by failing to prevent the sale of illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products.
AliExpress has been hit with a €550 million (approximately $629 million) fine for breaching Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) rules. The European Commission determined that the e-commerce platform failed to take effective measures to curb the spread of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products.
The Commission highlighted that AliExpress “allocated insufficient staff” to verify products and did not remove unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics from the platform for “multiple weeks” after they were detected.
“The spread of counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, dangerous cosmetics and other illegal and harmful products is not an unavoidable cost of shopping online — it is a failure by AliExpress to comply with its obligations under the Digital Services Act,” said EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen in a statement.
This fine is the largest ever imposed under the DSA framework, surpassing a previous penalty of more than $230 million levied on rival Chinese retailer Temu in May for similar violations.
AliExpress has until October 20, 2026, to remedy the breach, or it may face additional periodic fines.
