Labubu Real vs Fake: 10 Checks and What Each One Proves

No single check proves a Labubu is real. A failed check is a strong warning sign, and some failures are serious. Use the table for a quick view, then read each check for the sources.

Pop Mart's US court complaint describes a genuine Labubu plush with nine sharp white teeth, with the fourth and fifth centered. The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC, warning 25-438, 18 August 2025), the UK's CTSI (13 August 2025) and Australia's ACCC (5 November 2025) all repeat the count. The ACCC says exactly nine.

A deputy head of China's customs agency said at a press briefing, reported by People's Daily on 14 July 2025, that copies are often one or two teeth short because of mold errors.

Worth: a wrong count is a strong warning sign. A right count proves nothing, because copies can have nine teeth too. WTVD, an ABC-owned TV station in North Carolina, in a story also run by 6abc, reported a buyer whose two toys had nine teeth but no QR code on the tag, so the count alone did not settle it.

Pop Mart's complaint describes a wide mouth that reaches almost to the ears and a prominent brow over the eyes. The eyes are slender, vertically oval and set one eye width apart. The nose is small and flat, shaped like an upside-down rounded triangle.

Pop Mart says the dolls vary mainly in body color, facial expression, and the color of the eyes, inner ears and nose. So compare shapes and spacing, not colors. The Strategist, a shopping guide from New York magazine, says real dolls have glossy embedded eyes, a pale peachy face and blended airbrush blush.

Worth: weak alone. This check helps most beside a genuine doll from the same series.

Pop Mart's complaint describes two closely spaced oval ears. Australia's ACCC names ears that are too wide as a sign of a fake. CHOICE, the Australian consumer group, reports that NSW Fair Trading also lists widely spaced ears as a sign.

Other guides online disagree about whether the ears should be symmetric, so this guide does not use those claims. Worth: a fail is a strong warning sign, and a pass proves nothing.

Pop Mart's complaint describes a plump oval body, hands with four fingers and feet with three claw-shaped toes.

In the same filing, Pop Mart alleges that the fakes it found had lopsided heads and upside-down faces. These are allegations in Pop Mart's own court filing, not court findings. The case was still open on the court docket on 28 October 2026.

Worth: a fail is a strong warning sign, and a pass proves nothing. It is a fast first check, but a good copy will pass it.

A UK recall published by the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) on 18 August 2025 (2507-0062) covers four designs of counterfeit Labubu plush sold by shops in Scotland, because feet, hands and eyes can come off with minimum force. In report 2508-0112, dated 1 October 2025, the left foot and right hand of a seized fake came off below the minimum force. Australia's ACCC lists small detachable parts as a sign of a fake.

CHOICE bought five fakes in 2025, a small sample. On three of them, a rubber part of about 1 cm came off the foot. All five had metal tag clips that were easy to remove, and one lost both eyes when lightly squeezed. CHOICE's real doll had no small parts that came off easily.

Do not pull hard or try to break the doll. If a part comes off in normal handling, keep the doll away from children and read our Lafufu guide.

Worth: a serious warning sign. It is a safety finding, not proof of who made the doll.

Pop Mart told ABC News that its figures are known for clean sculpting and careful paint. ABC News adds that sloppy or chipped paint on the eyes, teeth or nose is a warning sign. The US CPSC lists overly bright colors. Australia's ACCC lists poor stitching or cheap fabric. CHOICE reports that NSW Fair Trading lists overly bright fur and vinyl.

Pop Mart's own US returns page adds balance. For blind-box figurines, it says some parts are spray-painted and assembled by hand, so color intensity varies. For plush and vinyl plush dolls, it treats minor scratches, black spots and scuffs as normal, but printing errors and missing prints as defects. Its US product pages say color can look different in photos.

Worth: weak alone. Judge paint and color against a genuine doll of the same design, in daylight.

Many guides tell you which foot carries the Pop Mart stamp. They disagree with each other, and Pop Mart names no side. Here is who says what.

ABC News says each figure has Pop Mart tags and artist attribution depending on the series, and Pop Mart told it that its 2024 releases added a QR code on the figure's tag. 6abc reported that Pop Mart's site said both the box and the wash label have a QR code, but the official Pop Mart pages read on 2 November 2026 do not mention the wash label. LegitApp, a paid authenticator, says older releases normally have no QR tag. No official source confirms that.

Spelling is the stronger check. UK OPSS described one seized Have a Seat fake with a label reading Popmart as one word, no QR code on the product and no importer name and address (report 2508-0112, 1 October 2025). That was one item, not a rule. Pop Mart itself writes POPMART as one word on its check screen, so the one-word form alone is not a misspelling.

Misspellings are on record. French customs seized plush labelled pap mort. The Strategist saw Pob Mart, Por Mart and The Monsiers on street fakes. ABC News found spelling mistakes on the top tag of a fake it bought.

CHOICE found that most of its five fakes had no QR code. The UK's CTSI says fakes often lack a CE or UKCA mark and importer details. A mark proves little either way. The European Commission says the CE mark is the maker's own declaration. That means a copy can print one too.

Worth: a misspelling is a serious warning sign. In the UK, CTSI says the packaging should list a UK-based importer or manufacturer, so a UK item with none is also a warning sign. A correct tag proves little.

Pop Mart's complaint says its blind boxes come with drawings of the doll on both the outer box and the inner bag. To find out which doll you have, you open the box, then find a card naming the character or open a sealed decorative bag.

The label example on Pop Mart's US help page is a Baby Molly box, not a Labubu box. It lists the brand, product name, model number, main material, the age 15 and up, a batch, the source, the manufacturer and its address, and importers by market, such as POP MART Americas Inc.

Why the box proves little: French customs seized 19,842 fake plush with 25,517 packagings at Mulhouse on 1 August 2025, and reported 7,392 plush with 8,624 packagings near Paris on 31 October 2025. More boxes than dolls suggests that fake boxes move in bulk. Shanghai police said in July 2025 that a ring shipped toys and packaging separately and bought anti-counterfeit stickers that were also fake. ABC News reports real boxes resealed around fakes. EU Safety Gate record SR/01138/26 describes a counterfeit that carried the brand name POP MART, a barcode and a batch number.

Weaker signs, each from one source: CHOICE says genuine packaging is matte and opens with a cardboard pull-tab. It also says real Labubus come with a matching character card, and none of its fakes had one. A toy seller told the US station KWCH that real boxes have a red strip that pulls out fully, and are glued, not taped. A collector told WTVD, an ABC station in North Carolina, in a story also published by 6abc, that real boxes have embossed lettering. Pop Mart's help pages describe none of these four details: the matte finish, the pull-tab, the red strip or the embossing.

In the US and Canada, Pop Mart's help page says to scratch the coating off the Box Label Code, go to m-gss.popmart.com/us, choose QR Verify and enter the code. No QR code on a recent release is a warning sign. A QR code that scans is not proof, and a repeat result on a doll sold as new is a warning sign.

Our Pop Mart QR code guide explains each result and the routes for other countries.

Pop Mart's US returns page, updated 19 October 2026, lists flaws that it treats as normal. The list below comes from that page and from Pop Mart's US product pages.

Pop Mart does treat printing errors, missing prints, significant print misalignment and extensive scratches on vinyl faces as defects. The UK's CTSI and ABC News list poor stitching as a sign of a fake, but on a hand-sewn doll it proves nothing alone.

These details come from Pop Mart's US store, read on 2 November 2026. Dates are US release dates and may differ by region.

Use the table to check the design names and secret figure of these eight series. Pop Mart sells many more Labubu lines, such as Lazy Yoga, Almost Hidden, Wacky Mart, Flip With Me and Catch Me If You Like Me, and catalogs differ by region. So a series missing from this table may still be real. The table cannot prove that a doll is real either.

EU Safety Gate records describe fakes sold as Exciting Macaron, Have a Seat, Big into Energy and Fall in Wild, and under the name Hide and Seek in Singapore, which was not on the US pages read. Other EU records describe fakes of a Coca-Cola series, which was also not on those pages, so this guide makes no claim about it. Materials differ widely between series, so a material list is not a fingerprint. No source says which series carry which mark.

Copies can have nine teeth, a QR sticker and a real box. ABC News says many fakes are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. Photos cannot test chemicals or how firmly parts are attached, and only Pop Mart can confirm a Pop Mart code.

A Vereev result is an expert opinion, not a lab test, and Vereev has not published tests of Labubu dolls. Vereev is independent of Pop Mart and does not issue Pop Mart certificates.

Stop using it and keep it away from young children. The US CPSC tells consumers to stop using lookalike dolls, and Australia's ACCC says to keep a doll you are unsure about away from young children.

Ask the seller or the marketplace for a return, and use any buyer protection you have. Pop Mart's US after-sales policy covers only its online store, physical stores and robot stores, and it sends other buyers to the original seller or to Pop Mart customer service. Save the listing, messages, receipt and photos as evidence.

Our Lafufu guide lists who to report a fake to, by country. For a second opinion, send guided photos in the Vereev app. Tokens are refunded if the photos cannot support a conclusion.