Our buying guide covers buyer protection at a high level. This one's the actual step-by-step: what it costs, how long it takes, and what to do if a seller just ignores you.
In this guide
Is your return free or not
Check the listing for a "Free Return" label before you buy, or on the order page after. If it's there, you can send the item back at no cost within 15 days of delivery. If it's not, you can still open a dispute for a refund — but returning the item yourself may mean paying for shipping to China, which is often why sellers offer a partial refund instead of an actual return on anything cheap. For anything under roughly $20, doing the math on return shipping before you insist on sending something back is worth it.
How to actually start a return
From your AliExpress account: go to My Orders, find the item, and click Return & Refund next to it. That opens a dispute rather than an instant refund — you're asking the seller to agree, not demanding money back unilaterally, which is a meaningfully different process than a return on a site like Amazon.
Once you've opened it, the seller has 5 days to respond. If they agree to the return, they'll issue a Free Return label for you to send the item back with.
How long it takes
Once a refund is actually approved — whether the seller agreed outright or AliExpress ruled in your favor after an escalation — the money lands back on your original payment method within a maximum of 10 business days. That clock starts at approval, not at when you opened the dispute, so the total time from "I want my money back" to "it's actually back" is the 5-day response window plus up to 10 business days after that, more if it gets escalated.
If the seller won't cooperate
Two situations, same fix: the seller doesn't respond within the 5-day window, or they respond but reject a dispute you think is legitimate. Either way, you can escalate to AliExpress directly rather than being stuck negotiating with someone who's ignoring you. AliExpress mediates the case itself at that point — this is the actual substance of "buyer protection," not just a marketing phrase, and it's the main practical reason AliExpress is safer than paying a seller directly outside the platform (never do that, for exactly this reason).
Frequently asked questions
Is returning an item on AliExpress free?
Only if the listing shows a "Free Return" label, in which case you can send it back at no cost within 15 days of delivery. Without that label, you can still open a dispute for a refund, but you may need to cover return shipping yourself — which is why sellers often offer a partial refund instead of a return for low-cost items.
How long does an AliExpress refund take?
Once a refund is approved, it's issued within a maximum of 10 business days back to your original payment method. The steps before that — the seller's 5-day response window, and any escalation if they refuse — can add time on top of that.
What if the seller won't approve my return?
You're not stuck. If a seller doesn't respond within 5 days or refuses a dispute you believe is valid, you can escalate it to AliExpress directly, which mediates the case rather than leaving the decision entirely with the seller.
Paying with a method that has its own purchase protection layered on top of this is still worth doing — see our payment methods guide for which ones actually offer that.
