AliExpress
Fined €550 million in July 2026 — the largest DSA penalty issued to date.
- Tier
- VLOP — very large online platform
- Provider
- AliExpress International (Netherlands) B.V.
- Sector
- Marketplace
- Designated
- 25 April 2023
- Obligations from
- 25 August 2023
- EU users at designation
- 104.3 million
- Formal proceedings
- 1
- Court challenges
- None
Designated 25 April 2023 on 104.3 million average monthly active recipients in the Union.
Proceedings opened on 14 March 2024 covering illegal products, complaint handling, trader traceability, advertising transparency and researcher data access. In June 2025 the Commission accepted binding commitments on part of the case, including public data access for researchers.
On 20 July 2026 the Commission fined AliExpress €550 million — the largest DSA penalty to date — with an action plan due by 20 October 2026.
Where AliExpress sits in the tier
Designation is not a ranking, and the obligations do not scale with size: the smallest designated service carries exactly the same duties in Articles 33 to 43 as the largest.
Marketplace duties stack underneath the designated tier
A platform that lets consumers conclude distance contracts with traders carries Section 4 of Chapter III on top of everything designation adds. Article 30 is a know-your-business-customer rule: before a trader can offer anything, the marketplace must collect name, contact details, payment account, and trade register information, and make best efforts to assess whether that information is reliable and complete.
Article 31 requires compliance by design — the interface must be built so traders can actually meet their own legal obligations. Article 32 is the right to information: where the provider learns an illegal product was offered, it must tell affected consumers who bought it in the preceding six months, identify the trader, and set out the means of redress.
This is where enforcement against marketplaces has concentrated. Every marketplace proceeding opened to date pairs an allegation about illegal products with an allegation about the systems meant to keep them off the service.
- Article 30
- Trader traceability, with a Commission-run database of trader information under Article 32(3).
- Article 28
- Protection of minors, where the marketplace is accessible to them.
Formal proceedings
Illegal products, trader traceability and platform transparency
Partially resolvedOpened 14 March 2024
€550 million fine, 20 July 2026 see all fines
- ·Dissemination of illegal and non-compliant products
- ·Complaint handling and internal redress
- ·Trader traceability and marketplace duties
- ·Advertising transparency and researcher data access
AliExpress timeline
- 25 April 2023 Designated a VLOP by Commission decision.
- 25 August 2023 Articles 33 to 43 begin to apply, four months after notification.
- 14 March 2024 Formal proceedings opened.
- June 2025 Commission accepts binding commitments on part of the case, including public data access for researchers.
- 20 July 2026 Commission fines AliExpress €550 million. An action plan is due by 20 October 2026.
What AliExpress has to do
Designation applies the asymmetric obligations in Articles 33 to 43. They are the same for every designated service, read against a platform surface. Terms used on this page are collected in the glossary.
- Article 34 Systemic risk assessment
- Article 35 Mitigation of risks
- Article 37 Independent audit
- Article 38 Recommender systems without profiling
- Article 39 Advertising repository
- Article 40 Data access for the Commission and vetted researchers
- Article 41 Internal compliance function
- Article 42 Transparency reporting
- Article 43 Supervisory fee
Related designations
Other marketplace services in the tier: Amazon Store, Shein, Temu, Zalando, Google Shopping.
Designated on the same day (25 April 2023): Google Search, Bing, YouTube, Google Play, Google Maps, Facebook, Instagram, Amazon Store, Wikipedia, TikTok, Pinterest, App Store, X, Snapchat, Zalando, Google Shopping, LinkedIn, Booking.com.