How to Return an AliExpress Order (and When a Return Isn't Worth It)

To return an AliExpress order, open My orders, go to the order's detail page and choose Return/refund. You give a reason, get a return label, send the parcel to a returns warehouse (not to the seller) and wait for the refund, which is paid once the warehouse has checked the item. That part is easy. Two other questions decide whether you come out ahead: who pays the postage, and whether the item is worth sending back at all. For a cheap item without a free return label, the honest answer is often no.

How to return an AliExpress order, step by step

The route below follows AliExpress's own Buyer Protection page. Buttons and deadlines can differ by order and country, so your order page is the final word.

1. Open My orders, then the order's detail page, and tap Return/refund.
2. Pick the reason, and pick it accurately. A wrong item, a fault or a mismatch with the listing puts the blame on the seller. Changing your mind puts the postage on you.
3. Choose a refund with return and claim the return label if your order offers one. A third-party guide reports that you have 5 days to click "Get Free Return tracking number" before the case closes. That isn't in AliExpress's published terms, so go by the countdown on your own order.
4. Pack the item with every accessory and drop it off. The same guide reports 15 days from getting the label to drop-off; the countdown on your order overrides it.
5. Submit the tracking number. This starts a clock in the Free Returns terms: the warehouse has to receive the parcel within 8 calendar days, or AliExpress decides who is liable under its own rules. So drop the parcel off first and enter the number the same day, not the other way round.
6. Wait for the quality check. The refund is issued after the warehouse inspects the item. How long it then takes to reach your card is in how long an AliExpress refund takes.

The terms send the parcel to a "free returns warehouse specified by the Participating Seller", not to the seller's own address. Use the label and address your order gives you. If a seller sends a different address in chat and asks you to use your own courier, say no: the same third-party guide warns that shipping outside the platform's instructions puts the claim at risk.

How long do you have to return it?

It depends on where the seller ships from, which is why pages that state "15 days" flatly are only half right. AliExpress's Free Returns terms set these windows:

Separately, the Buyer Protection page gives 15 days from receiving the item for problems with its condition. So the two numbers you'll keep seeing are 15 and 90, and they count from different starting points.

The terms we're quoting are dated May 2024, and AliExpress can change them. The window printed on your order is the one that counts. Read it before you do anything else.

Who pays for AliExpress return postage?

Two things decide it: whose fault the return is, and whether the listing had Free Returns.

Free Returns shows as an icon on the product page of listings that take part. Where it applies, the seller funds a free return label, and the terms allow it "only once for each order". They also say eligibility is "determined by AliExpress at its sole discretion". In plain words, the icon is an offer the platform can decline for your order. Buyers run into this. A thread on OzBargain titled "Why AliExpress Asked for a Return Shipping Fee When They Have 15 Days Free Returns" shows a listing promising "The first return on each order is free", followed by a return screen offering a refund that "pays the return shipping fee" instead. Some secondary sources also mention a monthly limit on free returns and a price cap. Neither appears in the published terms, so don't plan around them. Until a free label actually appears on your order, assume you're paying.

Without a free label, the rules split by fault:

• Change of mind: you pay. The Buyer Protection page says it directly: "If the return is made due to change of mind, you shall pay for related return shipping fee."
• Seller error (wrong item, defect, doesn't match the listing): AliExpress's help wiki says your original shipping is refunded as well. That covers the delivery you already paid for, not the trip back, so check what your order offers for the return leg before you pay for postage yourself.

Is it worth returning? The cost logic

Our Buyer Protection guide already makes the case for asking for a refund without return on cheap items. Here is the arithmetic behind that advice, so you can apply it to your own order.

We can't give you a postage figure. It depends on your country, the parcel and the carrier, and there's no reliable number to quote. Work it out instead. A return pays you the refund, minus any postage you pay, minus the risk that the warehouse rejects the item. With a free label the postage is zero, and a return is usually worth it for anything you don't want to keep. Without one, get a quote for a tracked parcel to the address on your order. It has to be tracked, because the process asks for a tracking number. If that quote comes close to the refund, you're doing a trip to the post office for almost nothing, and you lose money if the item then fails inspection.

Now look at it from the seller's side. One seller wrote on a forum that returned goods rarely make it back to China in practice and are thrown away or sold off cheaply, and told buyers to "just keep the goods, and ask refund from the seller". That's one seller's account, not policy. It does explain why sellers often prefer to refund and let you keep the item, and AliExpress's wiki confirms sellers may offer partial refunds too.

A refund without return is not a right. The seller decides, or AliExpress does if it goes to a dispute. If the seller refuses, opening a dispute is the next step, and that post covers the evidence to attach.

What AliExpress won't take back

Some categories can't be returned at all. The Buyer Protection page lists prohibited items, underwear, socks, food, batteries and customised products.

For everything else, the Free Returns terms set a standard of "intactness" that the warehouse checks before refunding you: original quality, all accessories included, no damage or contamination, not activated, and anti-counterfeiting marks unopened. Natural wear doesn't qualify either.

This is where returns quietly fail. A phone case you've fitted, a gadget you've paired with its app, earphones missing their spare tips: each can fail the check, and a failed check can cost you the refund. If you've used it, the cost logic above probably says keep it.

How to protect the refund

• Photograph the item, every accessory and the packed box before you seal it.
• Keep the drop-off receipt and the tracking number until the money arrives.
• Ship to the address on your order's label, never to one sent in chat.
• Write down the deadlines on your order page: claiming the label, dropping off, and the 8 days the warehouse gets once you submit tracking.

If the case closes before you finish, usually because a deadline passed, why AliExpress orders and cases close explains the statuses. And if the parcel never arrived, there's nothing to return. That's a different claim, covered in what to do when an AliExpress order doesn't arrive.

Checking buyer photos before you order

AliScore has no returns feature, and it can't stop an item from disappointing you. What it can speed up is the check that catches a wrong-looking item before you pay: comparing the listing with what buyers actually received. When a listing has photo reviews, AliScore's panel on the product page shows an "N with photos" figure next to the review count, so you can see at a glance that there's photo evidence worth scrolling for. For clothes, our sizing guide explains how to read those photos for fit.

The 0–10 score also drops for listings with fewer than 10 reviews, because a handful of reviews proves little. AliScore reads public review data. It doesn't open the photos for you, and it doesn't promise the item will match; how it works shows exactly what it reads.

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