The European Commission has fined AliExpress €550 million (approximately $629 million) for violating the Digital Services Act, the highest penalty ever imposed under the EU's DSA rulebook. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen announced the decision, which centers on the platform's failure to prevent illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products from reaching consumers in the bloc. The Verge

The Commission's ruling identifies two core failures. First, AliExpress allocated insufficient staff to verify products listed on its platform, leaving systematic gaps in its compliance infrastructure. Second, the company failed to remove unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics for multiple weeks after they were detected, allowing known-risk items to remain available for purchase. The Commission also stated that AliExpress underestimated the risk of disseminating illegal products on its platform. The Verge

AliExpress has until October 20, 2026, to remedy the breach or face additional periodic fines. Under the DSA, companies face penalties of up to 6% of their total global annual revenues for breaches. The €550 million figure reflects the Commission's assessment of the severity and duration of the violations. The Verge

The decision caps a process that began in March 2024, when the Commission launched a formal probe into AliExpress over possibly illegal online products. Reuters By June 2025, the EU accepted commitments from AliExpress to catch illegal products on its platform, but the formal investigation continued. Reuters In March 2026, AliExpress executives appeared before European lawmakers and told them the company was improving its controls. Reuters The commitments and the parliamentary assurances were not enough to close the case.

The AliExpress penalty arrives roughly two months after the Commission fined rival Chinese marketplace Temu more than $230 million for similar DSA infractions in May. The Verge Both cases target the same structural problem: marketplace platforms that facilitate large volumes of third-party listings without adequate vetting, takedown, or staff allocation to meet DSA obligations around risk assessment and mitigation.

The DSA's enforcement model gives the Commission direct regulatory authority over Very Large Online Platforms, a designation that brings obligations beyond content moderation to encompass product safety, algorithmic transparency, and data access for researchers. The staffing finding against AliExpress is notable because it treats headcount and resource allocation as measurable compliance metrics rather than internal business decisions. A platform cannot satisfy its DSA obligations, the Commission is signaling, by committing to processes on paper while under-resourcing the teams that would carry them out.

The delayed takedown of unsafe toys and cosmetics adds a second dimension. Under the DSA, platforms are expected to act promptly once illegal content or products are identified. Multiple weeks of inaction after detection crosses a line the Commission has now quantified in euros.

Looking at the broader trajectory, the Commission has now imposed two of its largest DSA fines on Chinese-owned marketplaces within a three-month window. The pattern is consistent with the DSA's design: the regulation was structured to give the EU enforcement teeth against platforms whose global scale and cross-border operations had previously made individual member-state action slow and inconsistent. The 6% global revenue cap means penalties scale with company size rather than EU-specific revenue, which materially raises the ceiling for large operators.

AliExpress's remedy deadline of October 20 gives the company three months to demonstrate concrete changes to its staffing, detection, and takedown workflows. Whether those changes satisfy the Commission will determine whether the €550 million stands as a one-time penalty or becomes a recurring cost.