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Paws & Boxes
Collect · Authenticity

How to tell if a Labubu is real: 7 checks, in the order that actually matters

Counterfeit Labubus have stopped being easy to spot. Early fakes had misspelled tags and the wrong number of teeth, and a careful buyer could catch them from a photo. The current ones are better, and some are close enough that a national TV report on them said many are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing. So there is no single trick that settles the question. What you can do is run checks in a sensible order, starting with the ones a counterfeiter finds hardest to copy, and stop as soon as one of them gives you an answer.

By the Paws & Boxes desk · Updated 11 November 2026 · 10 min read

The short version

Start with who sold it to you. Then check the verification code on the box on Pop Mart's own site, and check the code on the doll's own tag as well, because fakes get put into real boxes. Teeth, foot stamps and paint quality come last, since they are the easiest things to imitate. If a child will play with it, look for safety markings regardless of whether it is genuine.

Why this is worth ten minutes

Numbers first, because they explain why this is no longer a niche worry. The UK government reported in October 2025 that border officers had seized about 259,000 counterfeit toys that year, worth around £3.5 million, and that roughly 236,000 of them, about 90%, were fake Labubus. In the same release, Trading Standards and the Intellectual Property Office said 21 of the 28 counterfeit toys they tested failed safety tests, and that 46% of people who had bought counterfeit toys reported problems such as toys breaking quickly, unsafe labelling or a toxic smell.

The United States saw the same pattern. On 18 August 2025 the Consumer Product Safety Commission warned that fake Labubu plush figures and keychains were small enough to fit in a child's mouth and block the airway, and that some broke apart and released small pieces. On 26 August, customs officers in Seattle seized about 11,134 fakes, valued by CBP at roughly $514,000, in an air shipment from South Korea that had been declared as LED bulbs.

Those are 2025 figures. We did not find newer official totals when we checked in November 2026, so treat them as the most recent we could verify rather than as today's count.

The reason to care is not only the money. A fake that falls apart in a toddler's hands is a different problem from a fake that merely disappoints a collector, and the checks below keep the two apart.

The seven checks, ranked

1. The seller (the only check that works before you pay)

Everything else on this list happens after the parcel arrives. The seller is the one check you can do first, and it is also the strongest, because it removes the question instead of answering it.

When ABC's Good Morning America asked Pop Mart how to avoid counterfeits, the company pointed to a short list: its own retail stores, its app, its Robo Shops, its official TikTok Shop, verified third-party retailers such as the official Pop Mart storefront on Amazon, and Pop Mart booths. If the shop that sold you the figure is not on that kind of list, the rest of this guide becomes damage control.

One practical detail: "sold by" matters more than the listing title. On a marketplace, anyone can write "Pop Mart" in a product name. Read the seller name on the checkout page and see whether it is the brand's own storefront.

2. The price, read in the right direction

The CPSC's advice is blunt: deep discounts can signal a fake. The less obvious half of that is the reverse case. Popular releases often sell out and, as the UK's Chartered Trading Standards Institute put it, genuine ones are close to impossible to find, so a price that is both below retail and available in quantity is odd for a figure people are queueing for. Nothing about a cheap listing proves it is fake, but it should move you from "probably fine" to "check everything below."

For scale, UK Trading Standards officers found fakes on sale for around £20 in two London shops during one raid. Cheap is not evidence by itself. Cheap combined with a seller you cannot place is.

3. The box and the holographic label

The CPSC lists a holographic Pop Mart sticker as a feature of authentic products. Reports describe a subtle three-dimensional shimmer and crisp lettering on real ones, and flat or blurry stickers on fakes. Spelling is the cheapest tell of all: the fake that Good Morning America bought had obvious spelling mistakes on its top tag and uneven stitching.

Treat this as a screening step, not a verdict. The same GMA report notes that many counterfeits are nearly indistinguishable from the real thing, and describes a scam in which counterfeiters take a genuine box, swap the toy inside and reseal it. A perfect box therefore tells you about the box.

4. The verification code on the box

This is where a check starts to carry real weight. Pop Mart runs a self-service authenticity page. Its FAQ text describes the steps (we could not load popmart.com directly from our workspace, so we read a reproduction of that FAQ; confirm the current steps on the official page): open the anti-counterfeiting verification page, find the holographic label on the packaging, enter the number printed there and press verify. Scanning the QR code on the label is the shortcut to the same page.

Two habits make this check worth something.

  • Reach the page yourself. Fake QR codes exist, and some lead to look-alike sites or error pages. Type the Pop Mart help address into your browser, or open the Pop Mart app, and enter the number by hand if a scan sends you somewhere unfamiliar. The domain should be one that belongs to Pop Mart.
  • Read the result, not just the green tick. Several collector guides report that the page shows how many times a code has been checked and that a first-time check is what you want to see. A code that has already been checked many times on a product sold to you as new is worth questioning, because copied codes get reused. We could not find this behaviour described on Pop Mart's own help page, so consider it community-reported rather than official.

5. The code on the doll itself

This is the step most buyers skip, and it is the one that catches the box-swap scam. A genuine box proves nothing about what is inside it, so the figure needs its own check. Pop Mart's guidance, as reported by ABC and echoed in legal commentary from the University of Richmond's journal, is to scan the code on the doll's tag or wash label as well as the one on the box.

If the box verifies and the tag has no code, or the tag leads somewhere odd, stop there.

6. The body: teeth, feet, colour

Now the checks everyone talks about first.

  • Teeth. The CPSC says authentic Labubu dolls have nine teeth and that fakes often have a different number. Several outlets repeat it, and it is a decent filter for cheap copies. It is also one detail a better counterfeiter can copy once someone points it out.
  • Foot stamp. Real figures carry a Pop Mart mark on the foot. Pop Mart told GMA that from its 2024 releases it added an engraved tag and the artist's name on the foot. Older figures may predate that, so a missing artist name is not automatically a red flag on an older piece.
  • UV mark. The CPSC says newer editions carry a subtle UV stamp on one foot. Sources disagree about which foot, with some saying left and some saying right, so compare against Pop Mart's official photos for your series rather than trusting a rule you read once.
  • Colour. The CPSC notes overly bright colours on fakes. Compare with official product photos in daylight.

Paint alignment, how the fur feels and how the plastic smells all show up in collector guides. They are real signals to experienced collectors and weak ones for everyone else, because they depend on having handled a genuine piece to compare against.

7. Safety markings (not an authenticity test, but the one that protects a child)

Nothing in this check proves a figure is real. It tells you whether it is reasonable to hand to a child. The CPSC advises checking for choking-hazard warnings and independent safety certification marks on toys with small parts. UK enforcers add the CE or UKCA mark and the importer's name and address; the Isle of Wight council listed the absence of both among the signs of the fakes it seized.

A figure that passes checks 1 to 6 and has no safety information is a collectible, not a toy, and should be kept away from small children.

At a glance

Check What you are looking for How hard to fake Where it comes from
Seller Pop Mart's own channels or named authorised retailers Hard Pop Mart, via ABC
Price Not far below retail on a sold-out release Not applicable CPSC
Box and hologram Crisp hologram, correct spelling Easy to medium CPSC, GMA
Box code Verifies on Pop Mart's own page Medium Pop Mart FAQ
Doll's own code Tag or wash label also verifies Medium ABC, Richmond JOLT
Teeth, feet, UV, colour Nine teeth, stamped foot, UV mark on newer editions Easy CPSC, GamesRadar
Safety marks Warnings, certification, CE or UKCA, importer details Easy to fake, easy to miss CPSC, UK IPO

Buying secondhand or sealed

Sealed boxes make checks 6 and 7 impossible, so the codes carry the whole load. Ask for clear photos of the holographic label before you buy and run the verification yourself when the parcel arrives. A screenshot sent by a seller proves very little, since screenshots are easy to make. This is our advice rather than an official procedure, and the point is simply that a check you ran beats one someone showed you.

If you are buying from a reseller, a detailed history of sold collectibles is more useful than a stranger's reassurance. Third-party authentication services also exist for resale; they are a convenience, not a substitute for Pop Mart's own page, which is the only check that comes from the maker.

If you think it is fake

Do not let a child use it. The CPSC's instruction for the fakes it flagged is to stop using them immediately. Then:

  1. Keep the box, the tag, the receipt and photos or a short video of the labels and the verification result.
  2. Report the seller to the platform you used and ask your card issuer or payment provider about a dispute.
  3. In the US, report injuries or defects at SaferProducts.gov. In the UK, contact Trading Standards through Citizens Advice on 0808 223 1133, the number several councils give.
  4. Do not resell it. Beyond the safety issue, passing on a figure you suspect is fake moves the problem to someone else.

Questions collectors ask

Can a fake have a QR code?

Yes. Legal commentary and collector guides both report counterfeits that copy the QR design and send the scanner to a suspicious site or a page with an error. That is why check 4 starts with reaching Pop Mart's page yourself.

My older Labubu has no QR code. Is it fake?

Not necessarily. GamesRadar notes that older versions may lack one while most current ones have it. For an older piece, the seller and the comparison with official photos do more of the work.

Is the nine-teeth rule reliable?

It is the CPSC's own rule of thumb and a good first filter, but treat it as a way to reject obvious fakes, not to approve a convincing one.

Which foot has the UV stamp?

Published guides disagree, and the CPSC says only "one foot" for newer editions. Check Pop Mart's product images for your specific series.

What if every check passes but the price felt low?

Then you likely have a real one, and you were lucky or the seller was uninformed. Passing the box code and the doll's code on Pop Mart's own page is the strongest evidence available to a buyer.

Sources