EU fines AliExpress record €550m over selling illegal goods

The European Commission has handed Chinese online retail giant AliExpress a record €550 million (£470 million) fine for failing to prevent the sale of illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products. 

The penalty is the largest ever issued under the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA), surpassing previous fines levied against platforms such as Temu and X.

The European Commission’s exhaustive two-year investigation concluded that AliExpress fell significantly short of its obligations under the DSA to assess and mitigate systemic risks. Regulators found that the platform’s detection systems were deeply flawed, allowing millions of prohibited items, such as counterfeit clothing, dangerous cosmetics and unsafe children’s toys, to circulate freely.

Furthermore, the Commission discovered that AliExpress severely under-resourced its human moderation teams, leaving reviewers with mere seconds to assess complex product listings. Investigators also noted that the platform’s recommendation algorithms actively promoted illicit goods, and items flagged as illegal frequently remained visible to consumers for weeks.

Henna Virkkunen, the EU’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security, and democracy, condemned the failures. “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,” Virkkunen said. “Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically.”

A massive player in the European e-commerce landscape, the platform – which is owned by Alibaba- boasts 193 million monthly active users within the EU. This makes it significantly larger than its major low-cost competitors in the bloc, including Shein, which has 156 million users, and Temu, which serves 130 million.

Because of its colossal market reach, EU regulators argued that structural failures pose a particular threat to consumer safety. While the €550 million penalty is the highest handed down under the DSA to date, it represents less than 1% of Alibaba’s total global revenue, falling well below the maximum possible fine of 6%.

AliExpress immediately criticised the decision, calling the financial penalty “disproportionate” and arguing that it fails to reflect proactive safety measures already implemented. The company is currently reviewing the ruling, but must pay the fine and submit a comprehensive compliance action plan to the European Commission by October 20, 2026.