Temu and Shein's Affiliate and Creator Programs: What Ultra-Fast-Fashion Marketplaces Actually Pay

Short answer

Temu runs its own, open affiliate and creator program with up to 30% commission plus a flat download bonus, no follower requirement, and access in more than 80 countries. Shein also has its own affiliate program — but Shein's affiliate page could not be fetched directly during this research (the page is JavaScript-rendered and returned no readable content across several attempts), so the commission figures below (typically 10-20%) are third-party-sourced, not confirmed directly on Shein's own site. Both programs are structurally different from Etsy's or Shopify Collabs' — no application process, no follower minimum, and both marketplaces sell under the same ultra-low-price model. Two new, dated developments make it more important than before to know the rules before building a campaign around either platform: the EU's 150-euro customs exemption for non-EU sellers ends on 1 July 2026, and a new French law bans advertising for ultra-fast-fashion brands like Shein and Temu — including via influencer partnerships — from 1 January 2027.

Temu's affiliate and creator program

Per Temu's own affiliate pages (temu.com/affiliate_question.html and affiliate_register.html), the program is built to be broadly accessible: anyone can join for free, with no website or large following required. The program explicitly targets "group admins and active members, community leaders, coupon and deal sharers, forum contributors" across 80+ countries.

• Commission: up to 30% of order value, plus a flat $12 reward per app download through a creator's code or link (Temu's own example: a $12 download reward plus 40% commission on a $50 order = $32 total for one conversion).
• Sign-up: free, no follower minimum — but traffic verification is required before withdrawals, and can unlock higher commission tiers.
• Code-based referral deadline: a new user must redeem the code within 1 hour of downloading the app and place an order within 30 days.
• Extra creator perks: free product samples and "post rewards" on top of ordinary commission, depending on follower count and content quality.

The most important detail: commission is not one fixed rate. It varies significantly by market, referral type and campaign — 30% is the upper end, not a guaranteed standard.

Does Shein have an affiliate program?

Yes — unlike Vinted, which has no affiliate program at all, Shein has its own, documented program (both roe.shein.com/affiliate-a-427.html and us.shein.com/affiliateprogram/guide confirm the program exists). The problem during this research was technical, not a question of whether the program exists: both pages are built as JavaScript-driven single-page applications, and a direct content fetch returned only the navigation menu, not the actual program content, across multiple attempts.

The figures that recur consistently across several independent third-party sources (including getlasso.co and creator-hero.com) are:

• Commission: typically 10-20% of the sale, with a base rate around 6% that scales up for campaigns, new customers and top-performing affiliates.
• Cookie window: 30 days.
• Payout: monthly, no documented minimum threshold.
• Entry requirement: no documented follower minimum — described as one of the easier fashion affiliate programs to get approved for.

Because none of these figures could be confirmed directly on Shein's own site during this research, they should be treated as an indication, not a guaranteed rate, and re-verified directly at us.shein.com/affiliateprogram/guide before being used in a brief.

Temu vs. Shein: comparison

The EU's customs change from 1 July 2026: what it means for a Temu or Shein campaign

The Council of the European Union gave final approval on 11 February 2026 to remove the EU's 150-euro customs duty exemption for goods shipped to EU consumers from non-EU countries — an agreement member states originally reached on 12 December 2025, per the Council's own press release. From 1 July 2026, there is therefore no longer a general duty exemption for consignments under 150 euros. Instead, a temporary, flat duty of 3 euros per item (per tariff line, not per parcel) applies to consignments valued at 150 euros or below — an arrangement the Council states covers 93% of all e-commerce flows into the EU, and which is intended as an interim solution until the EU's central Customs Data Hub platform takes over from 1 July 2028.

In practice, that means an item a Danish creator promotes through a Temu or Shein affiliate link becomes genuinely more expensive for the buyer after 1 July 2026 than it was before — regardless of whether the creator or the buyer ends up absorbing it in practice. Because the duty is flat per item rather than percentage-based, it hits the cheapest items hardest in proportional terms — exactly the price range Temu and Shein's core assortment sits in.

Worked example: how much does the 3-euro duty actually change the price?

The figures below are illustrative calculations on the publicly confirmed duty structure — not data from a specific order or a Make Influence customer.

• A 50 kr. item (roughly 6.7 euros): the 3-euro duty adds a price increase of roughly 45%.
• A 150 kr. item (roughly 20 euros): the 3-euro duty adds a price increase of roughly 15%.
• A 750 kr. item (roughly 100 euros, still under the 150-euro threshold): the 3-euro duty adds a price increase of roughly 3%.

The point: the cheaper the item, the more the flat duty is felt proportionally — and a large share of Temu and Shein's assortment sits right in that cheap range, where the price increase becomes most visible to a follower buying off an affiliate link.

France's ban on influencer advertising for ultra-fast fashion, from 2027

The French Parliament gave final approval to an "anti-ultra-fast-fashion" law on 29 June 2026; the law (Law No. 2026-602) was then promulgated on 8 July 2026 and published in France's official gazette (JORF No. 0159) on 9 July 2026, per a legal review on village-justice.com. As far as this research can confirm, France is now the first EU member state with a direct ban on influencer advertising for this specific category of brand.

• What's banned: all advertising, direct or indirect, paid or free, for a brand classified as "ultra-fast fashion" — including via influencer partnerships. Per the legal review, the ban explicitly covers product placement, "hauls," sponsored reviews, affiliate links and editorial content that names the brand.
• Takes effect: 1 January 2027.
• Penalties: administrative fines of up to 100,000 euros, enforced by the French consumer protection authority, DGCCRF. Some media coverage distinguishes a lower tier for individuals from a higher one for companies — this couldn't be confirmed unambiguously in a single primary source during this research, so only the confirmed 100,000-euro ceiling is used here.
• Territorial scope: the law doesn't explicitly state that it applies only to France-based influencers — but it contains market-access clauses exempting persons established in other EU/EEA member states, which per the legal review creates real uncertainty about how enforcement against foreign creators would work in practice.

The law defines "ultra-fast fashion" using criteria like release speed and the breadth of a brand's product range, combined with a repairability metric comparing an item's price to its repair cost — a definition several French outlets describe as built specifically to target Shein, Temu and AliExpress, without naming them in the law's own text.

Important for a Danish reader: this is French national law and doesn't apply in Denmark. But it's a concrete, dated signal of the direction EU regulation of ultra-fast-fashion marketing is moving in — and a ban that specifically names influencer partnerships is worth factoring into any brand safety assessment of a Temu- or Shein-related campaign, even outside France.

Product safety: another brand safety factor

Beyond the commercial terms, there's a documented product safety risk worth knowing before building a campaign around a Temu or Shein product. The Belgian consumer organisation Test Achats, together with German and Swedish sister organisations, tested 162 products bought on Temu and Shein and found that 112 of them (roughly 70%) failed to meet EU safety requirements — with most failures in the children's products and electronics categories, per the organisation's own publication. The European Commission has separately confirmed that Temu and Shein will be held liable for the sale of unsafe and dangerous products on their platforms, and has flagged a revamped Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation and the Digital Fairness Act as part of its 2026 work programme.

This isn't an argument for or against working with either platform — but it's a concrete, dated data point worth having if you're assessing the broader brand safety risk of attaching a brand or creator to them. See the brand safety checklist for influencer partnerships for the full eight-point review, where this kind of documented, third-party-tested risk belongs.

Decision framework

IF you're considering Temu's own affiliate program to promote products directly — the commission is genuinely documented and high compared with most other marketplace programs in this series, but remember 30% is the upper end, not a guaranteed rate.

IF you're considering Shein's affiliate program — verify the specific commission rate and cookie window yourself, directly at us.shein.com/affiliateprogram/guide, before budgeting against the third-party figures in this article.

IF the campaign needs to reach a French audience, or the creator has followers in France — account for the ban taking effect 1 January 2027, even if the creator themselves is Danish.

IF you're building content around a specific item price — factor in the new 3-euro duty from 1 July 2026, especially on cheap items, where the proportional effect is largest.

Worked example: what could a Danish creator actually earn on Temu's affiliate program?

The figures below are hypothetical and for illustration only — not figures from a real creator or a Make Influence customer, and built on Temu's own published example structure, not a guaranteed average performance.

Assume a Danish creator shares their personal Temu code across a series of stories, and 200 followers download the app through the code and each place a first order averaging $40, all within the required deadlines:

• Download rewards: 200 × $12 = $2,400
• Order commission at an assumed rate of 20%: 200 × $40 × 20% = $1,600
• Total = $2,400 + $1,600 = $4,000 (roughly 27,600 kr. at an illustrative rate of 6.9 kr./$)

The point isn't the specific krone amount, which depends entirely on actual conversion rate and commission tier at the time of the campaign — it's the structure: on Temu, a large share of earnings comes from the download itself, not only from the subsequent purchase, which is different from most other affiliate programs in this series, where the entire payout comes from tracked sales.

Common mistakes

• Assuming Shein's commission figures are confirmed directly on Shein's own site — they're third-party-sourced in this article, because Shein's page couldn't be fetched directly.
• Treating 30% as Temu's standard rate, when it's genuinely the upper end, and the actual rate varies by market, category and campaign.
• Overlooking the new 3-euro customs duty when calculating a campaign's real price for the follower after 1 July 2026.
• Assuming a French ban is irrelevant to a Danish creator, if part of the audience is actually based in France.
• Building a campaign on either platform without weighing the documented product safety risk, which belongs in an ordinary brand safety review the same as any other platform.

Make Influence's operational perspective

Our experience is that Temu and Shein raise a different question than most other marketplaces in this series: it's not just "what does the program pay," but "does this fit the brand's own positioning and risk appetite." The commission on Temu's program is genuinely high compared with, say, Etsy's roughly 4% — but the documented product safety risk and the French advertising ban are both concrete, dated signals that regulatory and reputational risk around these two platforms is rising, not falling. For a Danish brand considering building content around either platform, we recommend treating it like any other brand safety assessment — not a platform to rule out automatically, but not one to approach without knowing the regulatory context either.

FAQ

Does Shein really have an affiliate program, or is that just third-party networks claiming it does?

Shein has its own, first-party program — confirmed via Shein's own domains (roe.shein.com and us.shein.com). What couldn't be confirmed directly during this research is the specific commission figures, because the pages are JavaScript-based and blocked direct text extraction.

Does the EU's new 3-euro customs duty apply to items under 150 kr. too?

Yes. The duty isn't tied to a lower threshold — it applies per item/tariff line on all consignments valued at 150 euros or below from non-EU sellers, regardless of how cheap the individual item is.

Can a Danish influencer still legally promote Temu or Shein after 1 January 2027?

In Denmark, yes — the French law is French national law and doesn't automatically apply to a Danish influencer or a Danish audience. But if part of the follower base is French, or the content is distributed to a French audience, the scope of the ban and the real enforcement risk should be understood before assuming it doesn't apply.

Are Temu and Shein's affiliate programs covered by ordinary Danish ad-disclosure rules?

Yes. A Danish creator earning commission through a Temu or Shein affiliate link who actively recommends the product has a commercial relationship that must be disclosed as advertising under the same rules as any other affiliate collaboration — see influencer marketing disclosure rules in Denmark and the EU for the full walkthrough.

Is there a Danish-specific affiliate network covering Temu or Shein, the way Partner-ads, Adtraction and Awin cover other brands?

None found during this research — both programs are administered directly by Temu and Shein themselves, not through one of the three networks active in the Danish market. See affiliate influencer marketing in Denmark for how Partner-ads, Adtraction and Awin compare.

How do Temu and Shein differ from Zalando or Boozt's affiliate programs?

Structurally similar to most marketplace programs — commission on tracked sales — but Zalando Lounge and Boozt run their programs through Awin, while Temu and Shein run theirs entirely independently. See Zalando and Boozt compared for the confirmed figures on that side.