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

The Commission's ruling identifies two core failures. First, AliExpress allocated too few staff to verify the products listed on its platform, leaving systematic gaps in its compliance infrastructure. Think of it like a warehouse with too few inspectors on the floor: goods keep moving through, but nobody is checking whether they meet safety standards. Second, the company failed to remove unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics for multiple weeks after they had been detected, allowing known-risk items to remain available for purchase. The Commission also found that AliExpress underestimated the risk of illegal products circulating on its platform. The Verge

AliExpress has until October 20, 2026, to fix these problems or face additional periodic fines. Under the DSA, companies can be penalized up to 6% of their total global annual revenue for violations — not just their EU revenue, but their worldwide income. The €550 million figure reflects the Commission's assessment of how severe and how long-lasting the violations were. The Verge

The decision follows a process that began in March 2024, when the Commission launched a formal investigation 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 violations in May. The Verge Both cases target the same structural problem: online marketplaces that handle large volumes of third-party listings without adequate vetting, takedown procedures, or staff allocation to meet DSA obligations around risk assessment and mitigation.

Under the DSA, the Commission has direct regulatory authority over Very Large Online Platforms — a designation that applies to platforms with more than 45 million monthly EU users and brings obligations beyond content moderation to include 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 purely internal business decisions. The Commission is signaling that a platform cannot satisfy its DSA obligations by committing to processes on paper while under-resourcing the teams that would actually 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.

The broader context here is that the Commission has now imposed two of its largest DSA fines on Chinese-owned marketplaces within a three-month window. The pattern fits the DSA's design: the regulation was built to give the EU enforcement power 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.