AliExpress fined almost $630 million over illegal product sales

AliExpress has been hit with a €550 million (about $629 million) fine for violating Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) rules by failing to prevent illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products from being sold on the e-commerce platform. The European Commission ruled that AliExpress didn’t take effective measures to reduce the dissemination of illegal products, noting the company “allocated insufficient staff” to verify products, and failed to remove unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics 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,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in the announcement. “Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically to ensure consumers can safely shop online.”

This is the highest penalty ever imposed under the bloc’s DSA rulebook, followed by rival Chinese retailer Temu, which was also fined more than $230 million for similar DSA infractions in May. AliExpress now has until October 20th 2026 to remedy the breach, or risk facing additional periodic fines.