Bricklink, LEGO’s biggest online marketplace and lifeblood of the LEGO community has made quite an alarming announcement. From 12 December 2025, BrickLink Marketplace will not be available for members in 35 countries around the world, which means that LEGO and Bricklink members will no longer be able to buy or sell on the Marketplace.
See Bricklink’s statement and list of countries impacted.
This is very surprising as the list of countries (listed below) are pretty established, and are home to thousands of AFOLs and LEGO fans, and are pretty mature markets for LEGO all things considered. These include South Africa, Turkey, Brazil, Indonesia, Egypt, Israel, Taiwan and even huge swathes of the Middle East.
- Indonesia
- Turkey
- South Africa
- Taiwan
- Ukraine
- Brazil
- Serbia
- United Arab Emirates
- Kazakhstan
- Peru
- Israel
- India
- Morocco
- Chile
- Vietnam
- Georgia
- Lebanon
- Saudi Arabia
- Qatar
- Oman
- El Salvador
- Bahrain
- Azerbaijan
- Armenia
- Pakistan
- Egypt
- Moldova
- Ecuador
- Argentina
- Costa Rica
- Colombia
- Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Turkmenistan
- Greenland
- San Marino
To put this into perspective, the total combined population of these countries exceed 2.5 billion, or just about 30% of Earth’s population which is wild.
This is a massive shift, and while I understand that Bricklink might have issues operating in some of these countries which are located in remote locations (Greenland), or in a state of war (Ukraine), a blanket ban on these 35 countries with less than 2 weeks notice is crazy.
There are plenty of Bricklink sellers in these countries who run their Bricklink stores as businesses, and rely on the income to support their livelihoods and families, so this really should’ve been communicated far ahead of time. I can’t imagine how stressful this might be to read for sellers in those countries.
Then there are LEGO fans in those countries, who will also be barred from buying on Bricklink, which is a whole other level of insane. LEGO fans, and LUGs rely deeply on Bricklink to source elements to express their creativity, as not every country in the world has official LEGO Stores, or access to Pick a Brick online, and Bricklink in some cases are the only way fans can buy LEGO sets too.
And these aren’t just any other countries, but countries where LEGO has an official presence in with LEGO Certified Stores, 3rd party retailers, and in the case of the UAE, even a Legoland Park. Oh, and Greenland’s on the list. That Greenland, a Danish territory.
There are also recognised LUG communities in these countries as well, so it’s not like The LEGO Group have no interest in nurturing LEGO fans and creativity in these countries.
This will absolutely smother and stifle LEGO fans and communities in these countries, and I cannot for the life of me understand why such drastic action is required.
It’s also ironic as Bricklink celebrated their 25th Anniversary this year, with quite a bit of fanfare, and to close out the year by barring 30% of the world’s population from using the service is in my opinion, an absolute slap in the face of Bricklink founder Dan Jezek, whose vision was to create a global LEGO marketplace and connect fans and elements from around the world.
Six years ago, I wrote that it was a terrible idea for LEGO to acquire Bricklink and revisiting some of my thoughts I expressed then, it sure seems like there’s some dodgy stuff happening behind the scenes.
To be fair, I acknowledge that there may be compliance challenges operating in some of these countries, where things like local laws, logistics, import restrictions etc may make it difficult for LEGO/Bricklink to do their business there, but surely there could’ve been a better way to communicate this, or invite community feedback instead of turning the whole site off in 2 weeks.
Apart from the sudden forum message, there has been no other comment or statement from LEGO or Bricklink about this decision, and with the Bricklink head office based in California, they likely won’t issue more communication on this issue until after the Thanksgiving weekend.
If this news upsets you in any way, please share your thoughts by leaving a comment on this post, or if you can manage navigating the extremely archaic Bricklink forums, leave a comment on the Bricklink post announcing this shocking news.
See full text below from Bricklink below:
Dear BrickLink members,
We’ve made the difficult decision to stop Marketplace operations in some areas:
https://www.bricklink.com/help.asp?helpID=2687
Starting December 12, 2025, BrickLink members in these countries will no longer
be able to buy or sell on the Marketplace.
We will review this decision regularly, and we hope to be able to reopen the
BrickLink Marketplace to LEGO® fans in these countries in the future.
Here’s an FAQ for members in these countries:
I have pending orders. What will happen to them?
Starting December 12, 2025 you will no longer be able to place new orders. Any
orders placed before that will be processed as usual.
What happens to my wanted lists?
You will still be able to access and manage your wanted lists. If you would like
to export any of your wanted list, use the ‘Download’ button at the top of the
page.
Will I keep my store inventory?
You will still be able to access your store inventory, but it’s always a good
idea to have a copy of your inventory. You can download it using this page: https://www.bricklink.com/invExcel.asp
We appreciate your understanding,
The BrickLink Team