Search how to start selling Christmas lights from China and you get sourcing agents' guides to the Yiwu market, supplier marketplaces listing thousands of string lights, and news about fake safety marks. None of them tells a Shopify brand buying string lights, lit wreaths, fairy lights and ornaments from a factory which of them carry a federal rule, what the lead warning on the cord means, or which shipping line each one goes on.

The short answer: in the US, plug-in seasonal lights, including lit wreaths, stars and figures, have to meet three requirements of the UL 588 standard on wire size, strain relief and fuses, or they are treated as a hazard. Battery, solar and low-voltage lights fall outside that rule. Lights with a lead-bearing cord need a warning in New York, and usually a Prop 65 warning for California customers, on the product page as well as the box. In the EU, mains lights need the CE mark, and in the UK they need a UK plug. On the shipping side, the power source decides the line: plug-in lights usually go as general goods, battery lights go on a battery line.

This guide covers:

• What decides the rules for Christmas lights: the plug, the battery and the cord
• The US wiring rule for plug-in string lights, and what a UL mark adds
• The lead warnings for New York and California, and where they go online
• The EU and UK rules for lights sold under your brand
• Which line lights and decorations go on, what a tree costs to ship, and how long it takes

What decides the rules for Christmas lights

Christmas ranges mix lights, lit decorations and plain decorations, and the rules follow how each one is powered and what it is made of:

• A 120 volt plug. String lights and lit decorations that plug into the wall fall under a federal rule on wiring, set out in the next section.
• A battery, a solar panel or an adapter. Battery fairy lights, solar garden lights and lights running from a low-voltage adapter are outside that rule. A battery still changes the shipping line, and a coin-cell remote brings in Reese's Law, covered in the guide to selling products with button batteries from China.
• A coated cord. Many cords are coated in PVC that can contain lead, which brings in state warnings.
• Plain decorations. Ornaments, garlands and tinsel carry no electrical rule. An ornament made to look like a toy, sold in a way that invites a child to play with it, can count as a children's product, with the test and certificate in the guide to selling toys from China.

Sorting your range into those four groups first tells you which reports to ask the factory for. This is a summary, not legal advice.

The US wiring rule for plug-in string lights

Since 2015, US rules treat seasonal and decorative lights that miss any one of three requirements of the UL 588 standard as a substantial product hazard, which in practice means a recall. The rule covers portable, plug-in, temporary lights rated at 120 volts, with the bulbs fitted at the factory, and it names lit stars, wreaths, candles without shades, light sculptures, blow-molded plastic figures and animated figures as well as plain strings. The three requirements:

• Wire size. The wire has to be at least the gauge the standard sets, so a long run of connected strings does not overheat.
• Strain relief. A pull on the cord must not reach the electrical connections at the plug or the bulb holders.
• Overcurrent protection. A fuse, usually in the plug, so a short or too many connected strings cuts the power.

Lights outside the rule: battery-operated, solar-powered, lights running from a transformer or low-voltage power supply, rope lights sealed in a flexible plastic tube, and lamps used to light up a decoration. Those still have to be safe, and the factory's test report is the place to check it.

UL 588 itself is a voluntary standard, so the law asks for those three parts, not the mark. A UL or ETL mark means a lab has tested the whole product against the standard, and it is what most buyers look for on the box. Marks on cheap lights are sometimes fake, so ask the factory for the certificate and its file number, then look the number up in the lab's own online directory before you order stock. The guide to ordering product samples from China covers how to check a sample against what the supplier claims.

The lead warnings on the cord

PVC cord coatings can contain lead and phthalates, which is why many boxes of lights carry a "wash hands after use" line. Two state rules decide whether yours need one:

• New York. Since 2022, seasonal lights with lead over 100 parts per million in the cord coating need a label printed on or attached to the product reading: "WARNING: HANDLING THE COATED ELECTRICAL WIRE OF THIS PRODUCT MAY EXPOSE YOU TO LEAD. WASH HANDS THOROUGHLY AFTER USE." The penalty is up to $1,000 per violation. It covers the same products as the federal rule: string lights, lit trees, wreaths and stars.
• California. Proposition 65 asks businesses with 10 or more employees to warn before exposing customers to listed chemicals, and lead is one. Lights sold to California customers with a lead-bearing cord usually carry a Prop 65 warning.

The part online stores miss is the product page. For internet sales, California's rules ask for the warning on the product page, or a clearly marked "WARNING" or "CALIFORNIA WARNING" link on it, or shown to the buyer before the purchase is completed, as well as on the box. The simplest way out of both rules is a cord with no added lead: ask the factory for a lead test on the cord coating, and if it comes back under the limits, there is nothing to warn about.

The EU and UK rules for lights sold under your brand

In the EU, plug-in lights run on mains voltage, so they fall under the Low Voltage Directive and need the CE mark, with the harmonised standard for lighting chains, EN IEC 60598-2-20, as the usual way to show they are safe. LED lights with a controller also fall under the EMC rules. Battery lights run below the directive's voltage range and sit under the General Product Safety Regulation instead. Either way, since 13 December 2024 every EU listing has to show the manufacturer's name and contact details, an EU responsible person when the manufacturer is outside the EU, a picture of the product and its warnings. Lights are electrical goods, so the crossed-out bin symbol and the take-back registration that come with them apply too, in each country where you sell direct.

In the UK, the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016 ask that plug-in equipment sold for home use comes with a correctly fitted UK plug, or a non-UK plug correctly fitted with a conversion plug and a fuse. A loose travel adapter in the box is not a correctly fitted plug. Factories in China make the same string with US, EU and UK plugs, so the plug is one more line on the order.

Which line lights and decorations go on

Parcel lines out of China run separate products by goods class, and a parcel goes on the one its contents allow. YunExpress, a frontier line, runs a general "Economy, Unrestricted" product beside "Economy with Battery" and its clothing and cosmetics products. SDH, a lowest-cost line to the US, runs general goods, battery and sensitive goods lines.

• Plug-in string lights and lit wreaths with no battery usually ship as general goods.
• Battery fairy lights, solar lights and anything with a coin-cell remote go on a battery line, under the rules in the guide to shipping products with batteries from China. App-controlled lights also need the paperwork in the guide to selling electronics from China.
• Glass and plastic ornaments, garlands and tinsel ship as general goods. Glass needs fragile packing.
• Tabletop trees, inflatables and lit figures are bulky, which is a cost question more than a line question. Full-size trees are usually too big for a parcel line.
• Aerosol snow spray is usually refused on parcel lines, so check with the line first.

Tell the line exactly what is in the parcel and let it pick the product. A battery packed as general goods can be held or sent back, and in December that wait lands on a present.

What a tabletop tree costs to ship

Decorations are light for their size, so the box decides the price. On lines that bill the greater of the scale weight and the volumetric weight, a 2 foot tabletop tree boxed at 60 x 25 x 25 cm has a volumetric weight of about 4.7 kg on a divisor of 8,000, while it weighs about 1.5 kg on the scale. Folded flat into a 60 x 25 x 12 cm box, the same tree works out at about 2.3 kg. That is a worked example, not a quote, but it is why folding branches and nesting ornaments matter more than the weight. The rules by line are in the guide to custom packaging for products shipped from China.

How long Christmas lights take from China

Light orders cannot be told apart in the parcel data, so the times here are for the line products they travel on. On YunExpress to the US, parcels with a first carrier scan in August 2026, the per-store median on the general goods Economy product ran 8.9 to 18.7 days, and 9 in 10 parcels arrived within 12.1 to 21.6 days depending on the store. The Economy with Battery product, for fairy lights and solar lights, ran 11.0 to 14.0 days at the median. On SDH, a lowest-cost line, the general goods product ran 14.3 to 15.2 days.

Those are August times. Parcels slow down through the peak, and for Christmas the date that matters is the last day an order can leave and still arrive in time. The guide to Q4 shipping dates from China works that out by destination: for the US, it is around the first week of December.

What to do

• Sort your range into four groups: plug-in, battery or solar, coated cords, plain decorations
• Get a test report against UL 588 for every plug-in string and lit decoration, and check any UL or ETL file number in the lab's directory
• Ask for a lead test on the cord coating, and add the New York label and a Prop 65 warning if it fails
• Put the Prop 65 warning on the product page, not just the box, when you sell to California
• Order the right plug for each market, and the CE mark for the EU
• Show the manufacturer and EU responsible person on every EU listing
• Sort the range by goods class before you book shipping: general for plug-in lights, battery for fairy and solar lights
• Weigh and measure one packed tree or figure before you set shipping rates

How we handle this at Commercive

Commercive is your all in one sourcing and fulfilment partner. We source from a product link or a photo across our vetted factories, or work with the supplier you already use, and we test products without holding you to the factory's minimum, which suits a store trying a few strings and decorations before the season.

Your stock is received on our floor in China, and every order ships on the line that fits the product and the destination: a general goods line for plug-in lights and ornaments, a battery line for fairy lights, solar lights and remotes, and a check with the line before anything unusual goes out. Each parcel's scans and weights sit in our dashboard. We recommend frontier lines such as YunExpress to essentially everyone, and in the gift weeks above all; a lower-cost line might suit low-price decorations ordered early. Our measured delivery times by line and country are on our shipping status page.

If you're currently running a brand, just give us the product and your daily order volume. We'll get you a quote within the next 24 hours to hold up against what you're paying today.

Where these numbers come from. The US wiring rule and its scope are from 16 CFR 1120.2(d) and 1120.3(c), read 6 November 2026. The New York label is from Chapter 634 of the Laws of 2021 (bill A4522-A), the California online warning rule from 27 CCR 25602(b), and the ornament point from the CPSC's children's product rule, 16 CFR 1200.2. The UK plug rule is from regulation 35 of the Electrical Equipment (Safety) Regulations 2016, read 6 November 2026; the EU picture is from the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU, the lighting chain standard EN IEC 60598-2-20 and the General Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/988. This is a summary, not legal advice. The tree weights are a worked example, not a measurement. Line product names are the carriers' own. Delivery times are our own measurement: parcels to the US from stores we fulfil from China, first carrier scan 1 to 31 August 2026, test stores excluded, calendar days from the first scan to the first delivered scan, measured 6 November 2026, shown as the range of per-store medians and 90th percentiles for stores with at least 30 delivered parcels on that line product.

Do Christmas lights need UL certification?

Not by law, but plug-in seasonal lights sold in the US have to meet three parts of the UL 588 standard: minimum wire size, strain relief and overcurrent protection. Lights that miss any of them are treated as a substantial product hazard. A UL or ETL mark shows a lab has tested the whole product against the standard, and most buyers look for it. The same file number check works for other plug-in gifts, such as the straighteners and curlers in the guide to selling hair tools from China.

What is UL 588?

It is the US safety standard for seasonal and holiday decorative lights, such as string lights, lit wreaths and light sculptures that plug into a 120 volt outlet. Federal rules make its wire size, strain relief and fuse requirements mandatory. Battery, solar, low-voltage and rope lights are outside that rule.

Why do Christmas lights have a lead warning?

Because the PVC coating on many cords contains lead, which can rub off on the hands. New York requires a "wash hands thoroughly after use" label when the coating has more than 100 parts per million of lead, and California's Prop 65 asks for a warning too. A cord with no added lead needs neither.

Does the Prop 65 warning have to be on my website?

Yes, if you sell to customers in California and the product needs a warning. For online sales the warning goes on the product page, as a clearly marked "WARNING" link on it, or in front of the buyer before checkout, as well as on the product or its box.

Can you ship Christmas lights from China?

Yes. Plug-in string lights and lit decorations with no battery usually go as general goods. Battery fairy lights, solar lights and anything with a coin-cell remote go on a battery line. Aerosol snow spray is usually refused, and full-size artificial trees are usually too big for a parcel line.

How long do Christmas lights take to ship from China to the US?

About as long as other goods on the same line. On YunExpress in August 2026, the per-store median ran 8.9 to 18.7 days on the general goods product and 11.0 to 14.0 days on the battery product, from the first carrier scan to delivery. Parcels slow down in December, so plan Christmas orders around the first week of December.