The European Commission fined AliExpress €550 million on 20 July 2026, calling it the largest penalty under the Digital Services Act (DSA) to date. The decision concerns the platform’s assessment and mitigation of systemic risks linked to illegal goods, including unsafe and counterfeit products sold through its marketplace. The fine is nearly three times the €200 million penalty imposed on Temu on 28 May 2026; together, the two cases total €750 million.
AliExpress, a subsidiary of Alibaba Group, was found to have inadequately assessed and mitigated risks associated with prohibited products. The Commission’s findings focused on how effectively the marketplace’s safeguards worked, including controls to detect counterfeit and illegal goods and prevent unsafe toys or potentially hazardous cosmetics from remaining on sale. Some listings reportedly stayed available for weeks after detection. The investigation also identified weaknesses in brand-authorisation processes and in enforcement against merchants whose listings breached platform rules. It raised concerns about staffing and sellers’ ability to publish products later removed as counterfeit.
The Commission’s action examined more than individual listings: it assessed whether AliExpress’s systems could identify and reduce risks created by the marketplace at scale. Reported shortcomings also involved the platform’s recommendation and advertising systems, as well as whether its risk assessments measured moderation’s effectiveness in practice. Employees were reportedly given as little as 10 to 20 seconds to review some products, raising questions about whether moderation resources matched listing volumes.
The proceedings began on 14 March 2024. The €550 million penalty was divided into €110 million for inadequate risk assessment and €440 million for insufficient risk mitigation. The conduct covered by the decision extended at least through June 2025, when the Commission formally accused the company of breaching the DSA. That month, AliExpress also faced EU scrutiny that resulted in binding commitments covering illegal-product detection and seller traceability, alongside advertising practices and complaint mechanisms.
The DSA, adopted in 2022 and applicable from 2023, imposes heightened duties on very large online platforms, including annual assessments of systemic risks and measures to address them. The designation threshold is more than 45 million monthly users in the EU, about 10% of the bloc’s population. The rules require platforms to assess and mitigate risks arising from their services, rather than rely solely on removing individual illegal listings after they are reported.
AliExpress has disagreed with the Commission’s decision and the size of the fine. The company has said it worked constructively with EU authorities and made impressive improvements, including voluntary steps to meet DSA requirements. It is reviewing the ruling and, information from reporting by Lewis Silkin, intends to appeal. The appeal does not remove the platform’s separate obligations under the corrective-action process.
The Commission ordered AliExpress to submit a corrective action plan by 20 October 2026. Under the reported timetable, the European Board for Digital Services would then have one month to issue an opinion, followed by a further month for the Commission to decide on the plan. The DSA authorises fines of up to 6% of a company’s worldwide annual turnover; it also allows periodic penalty payments of up to 5% of average daily worldwide turnover in relevant circumstances. The €550 million fine is separate from the corrective process. It is not a suspension or operating ban, does not automatically invalidate completed purchases and does not require consumers to return products.
The €550 million penalty represents less than 1% of Alibaba Group’s reported €120 billion turnover in 2025. The EU’s stricter digital regulation has drawn criticism, particularly from some US-based companies, which argue that the rules are protectionist and threaten free expression. The Commission maintains that the measures are necessary to protect consumers and ensure accountability among the world’s largest online platforms. By that point, the AliExpress and Temu penalties together accounted for a large share of DSA fines. For further context on how the EU’s regulatory approach is affecting other sectors, see this analysis of regional funding tensions in Spain: debate over regional funding fairness.
