How to Open an AliExpress Dispute, Escalate It, and What to Do When the Button Is Missing

To open an AliExpress dispute, go to your order's detail page and use the dispute button. Depending on your app or site version it's labelled "Returns/refunds", "Open dispute" or "Disputes & Reports". The clicks are the easy part. Buyers lose disputes to a missed timer, a vague reason or a counter-offer they never answered, so those are here too, along with what to do when the button isn't there at all. What Buyer Protection covers, and the evidence for each type of problem, is in the Buyer Protection guide. This page is about the mechanics.

How to open an AliExpress dispute, step by step

Open Orders, pick the order, and on its detail page tap the refund or dispute button. Choose a reason, choose refund-only or return-and-refund, attach your evidence, set the refund amount and submit. The seller then gets a window to respond.

In more detail:

1. Find the order. Open Orders from your account, then the order itself. The button sits on the order detail page, not in the chat with the seller.
2. Tap the dispute button. Sources give four different labels for it, so look for whichever of "Returns/refunds", "Open dispute", "Dispute" or "Disputes & Reports" your version shows.
3. Choose the reason. The usual options are not received, not as described, and quality problems. Pick the one your evidence proves, not the one that sounds most serious.
4. Choose the refund type. Refund-only is for a parcel that never came or an item that's unusable because of the seller or the carrier. Return-and-refund means you send it back first; the returns guide covers that route.
5. Upload evidence and write one factual sentence per problem.
6. Set the amount and submit.

Messaging the seller is worth doing, but it isn't a claim. AliExpress's own Buyer Protection page puts it plainly: "You raise a claim by opening a dispute."

Which deadlines are real?

Guides online contradict each other here, and so do two articles on AliExpress's own domain. This is what they said when we compared them in September 2026.

The only numbers on the official policy page are the first two rows. Everything else is commonly reported, not confirmed, and some of it is years old.

So treat the countdown on your own order page as the authority. It's set per order and per shipping method, and it overrides anything you read here or anywhere else. If the timer for a missing parcel is close to zero, open the dispute now. A window that has already shut doesn't reopen.

Get the first submission right

An older guide reports that each order gets one dispute and a closed one can't be reopened. A 2026 guide says that once you accept a resolution, you can't open another. Neither is on the official page, but together they make the safe assumption: you get one go.

That changes how you fill in the form:

• Ask for the full amount if the item is useless to you. Don't pre-discount your own claim.
• Match the reason to the evidence. If the item is the wrong size, a photo of it against a tape measure beside the listing's spec is "not as described" with proof. The same complaint filed as a "quality problem" with no measurement is weaker.
• Add the seller's own words. Beyond the photos and screenshots the Buyer Protection guide lists, a chat message where the seller admits the problem is strong evidence.
• Screenshot the listing before you open the dispute. Sellers can edit it, and the version you bought from is the one your claim rests on.

Write it flat. An angry paragraph adds nothing that a measured photo doesn't say better.

What happens after you submit

The seller gets a response window. They can accept, reject, or make a counter-offer, often a partial refund.

The trap is the counter-offer timer. Some guides report that if you don't respond before it runs out, your silence is treated as acceptance. Answer every counter-offer before its deadline, even if the answer is no.

Silence on the seller's side works the other way. If they say nothing at all, the request is often approved in your favour once their window passes.

If the seller rejects your request or counters with something you won't take, the next step is escalation.

How to escalate an AliExpress dispute

In many versions an "Escalate dispute to AliExpress" button appears once the seller has rejected, countered or let their window lapse. Before you press it:

• Edit first. You can change your request and add evidence before escalating. Reports agree that you can't edit after.
• Then escalate. The status changes to "Under Review". AliExpress may ask both of you for more evidence, again with a timer. Watch for that request and answer it.

At least one guide says escalation is now automatic: if you and the seller haven't agreed within a few days, AliExpress steps in without a button. That may be why so many buyers go looking for a missing escalate button. If you can't see the button and the status still shows the dispute waiting on the seller, the platform may simply not have taken it yet. Check the timer before you assume something is broken.

Two guides, one written for dropshippers, also describe an appeal ("Reject and Appeal") with a 7-day limit. Neither cites an official source. If your dispute page shows an appeal option, its own deadline is the one that counts.

No dispute button? Work out which case it is

"Contact customer service" is the usual advice. It's a last resort, not a first step. Work down this list first.

• Too early. The order is still in its early transit days. Guides disagree on how many days after shipment the button appears, so don't trust a number. Check again in a few days and keep an eye on the order-page countdown.
• Too late. The protection window has closed, or you confirmed receipt long ago. The official policy gives 15 days after receipt for damaged or misdescribed items. Past that, contact AliExpress support with your evidence, and expect a harder case.
• Already used. You accepted a resolution, a dispute already ran on this order, or the item is part of another open claim. Look in Disputes & Reports (or your app's equivalent) for the existing case.
• A glitch. Try another browser, the app instead of the website (or the reverse), or clear the cache.
• Account restrictions. If your account is limited, support is the only route.
• You paid outside AliExpress. Bank transfer, a payment app, or a link from the seller's message means there's no AliExpress order and nothing to dispute. Your bank or payment provider is the only option left.

How long does an AliExpress dispute take?

It depends on the seller first. If they accept, it can close within their response window. An escalated case takes longer: guides report decision times from a few business days to two months, and none of those figures is official. Once a dispute is approved, the money goes back as an AliExpress refund bonus or to your original payment method, per the official policy. How long an AliExpress refund takes covers the wait after approval.

When the dispute closes and you still have nothing

It happens. One buyer's Trustpilot review from December 2025 describes a parcel handed to the courier Evri that went missing: AliExpress told them to contact the supplier, then emailed "order dispute ended!" with the refund still unresolved. If you get that email, three things are still open to you:

1. Keep every screenshot: the order page, the tracking, the dispute history, the email.
2. Contact AliExpress support with that evidence and the order number, and ask specifically why the case was closed.
3. If that fails, ask your card issuer or PayPal about their own dispute process. Each sets its own deadline, so ask early rather than after weeks of back-and-forth.

For a parcel that never arrived, the order not received guide covers tracking states and when to wait. If the order itself shows as closed or cancelled rather than disputed, see why AliExpress orders get closed or cancelled.

Before the next order: checking the seller first

AliScore doesn't open, track or win disputes. Nothing on this page is something it does. The step it helps with comes earlier: judging the seller and the reviews before you pay.

On a product page it shows a 0–10 score with a verdict, from "Safe to buy" to "Risky". One part of that score is seller trust: the store's feedback rate read on a strict 85–100% scale, plus its follower count. Another is the sentiment of the reviews, and the score is pulled down when a listing has fewer than 10 of them. The panel also shows how many reviews include buyer photos ("N with photos"), so you know at a glance whether there are real pictures to check against the listing's before you pay, rather than after a "not as described" parcel arrives.

It's a heuristic over public data, not a promise, and it won't make a dispute unnecessary. Read the reviews anyway. The how it works page shows exactly what it reads.

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