Prohibited and restricted items

Prohibited and restricted items policy overview

Before listing your item, make sure we allow it on eBay, and find out if we have specific rules and conditions on how you should list it. Check the list of prohibited and restricted items below. You also need to make sure that the sale of your item complies with all laws and any additional restrictions applicable to payment services offered on eBay such as credit card association or network rules.

Make sure your listings and products follow these guidelines. If they don't, they may be removed, and you may be subject to a range of other actions, including restrictions of your buying and selling privileges and suspension of your account.

Understanding the rules

Our policies are often based on country and state laws, although in some cases, we may also base our policies on input from our members and our own discretion, especially for dangerous or sensitive items.

Read and understand our policies before listing items. Follow our guidelines and review our examples so you know beforehand what you can and can't sell on eBay.

When selling internationally, read our international trading policy. Although certain items may be legal to sell in your country, they might be illegal elsewhere.

The list of prohibited and restricted items below covers items you can list under certain conditions, and items that we don't allow at all. In our medical devices policy, for example, while we don't allow many items (such as contact lenses), we do allow other items under certain conditions (including certain types of medical instruments).

To find out if we have other guidelines that might affect your listing or product, read our rules for listings and our rules about intellectual property.

Prohibited and restricted items

• Adult only category
• Alcohol
• Art
• Artifacts, grave-related items, and Native American arts and crafts
• Catalytic converters and test pipes
• Cell phone (wireless) service contracts
• Charity and fundraising
• Clothing, used
• Contracts
• Cosmetics
• Counterfeit currency and stamps
• Coupons
• Credit cards
• Currency, selling
• Drugs and drug paraphernalia
• Electronics equipment - examples include cable TV de-scramblers, radar scanners, and traffic signal control devices
• Embargoed goods and prohibited countries - examples include items from Cuba
• Firearms, weapons, and knives - examples include pepper spray, replicas, and stun guns(see also military items)
• Food
• Gift cards
• Government documents, IDs and licenses
• Government, transit, and shipping-related items - examples include airplane operations manuals, subway employee uniforms, and U.S. Postal Service (USPS) mailbags
• Hazardous, restricted or regulated materials - examples include batteries, fireworks and refrigerants
• Human remains and body parts
• Importation of goods into the US - examples include CDs intended only for distribution in a certain country
• International trading
• Items encouraging illegal activity - examples include an eBook describing how to create methamphetamine
• Lock picking devices
• Lottery tickets
• Mailing lists and personal information
• Medical devices - examples include contact lenses, pacemakers, and surgical instruments
• Military items (see also firearms, weapons, and knives)
• Multi-level marketing, pyramid and matrix programs 
• Offensive material - examples include ethnically or racially offensive material and Nazi memorabilia
• Pesticides
• Plants and seeds
• Police-related items
• Political memorabilia (reproduction)
• Postage meters
• Prescription drugs
• Real estate
• Recalled items 
• Slot machines
• Stamps
• Stocks and other securities
• Stolen property
• Surveillance equipment - examples include wiretapping devices and telephone bugging devices
• Tobacco
• Travel
• Weeds (see plants and seeds)

Tip
Visit Seller Help to find details of any policy issues with your account or listings, and get the information you need to quickly resolve them.

Reporting policy violations

If you see a listing that violates one of our policies, report it by clicking Report item in the listing.

If we determine that a listing or product has violated a policy, we email the seller and the bidders or the buyer to let them know that we've removed the listing or product from eBay.