More than 400 consumer products were recalled in 2025

Hundreds of consumer products were recalled last year — everything from children’s toys to exercise equipment, dressers to hair dryers. It’s a list that could haunt you in your sleep, and it’s a big jump from recent years.

Jason Hertzberg at Exponent helps companies evaluate their products for potential safety issues.

“Nowadays, there are so many other channels that need to be monitored, like online forums and endless reviews,” he said.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission investigates reports it receives and even does some secret shopping and product testing of its own. The CPSC is also the agency that announces recalls.

Teresa Murray at the U.S. Public Interest Research Group analyzed those announcements and saw that they shot up last year to 420 products.

“It's the highest number of product recalls in 18 years, since 2007,” she said.

Most are initiated by the companies that make the products themselves, though if the CPSC can’t get a company to agree to a recall, “they will issue what's called a ‘unilateral warning,’” explained Murray. “It's a product warning, but it's not as good as a recall, because consumers don't have to get notified.”

Still, Murray noted that those warnings were way up last year, too, covering 120 products.

Over the past few years, new rules have gone into effect, according to Chris Harvey at Sedgwick, who works with companies preparing for and executing recalls. That includes ones aimed at reducing furniture tipover risks, making sleep safer for babies, and preventing ingestion of button batteries.

“Now, I think we're starting to see violations that are generated from some of these recent laws, as well,” Harvey said.

The CPSC is also more actively looking at items coming in through ports, he said.

"CPSC’s job is to reduce unreasonable risks to American families, and we’re leveraging all the tools Congress gave us to remove unsafe products from homes quickly,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Peter A. Feldman in a statement. “This includes AI-enabled targeting at U.S. ports, stronger e-commerce enforcement to identify dangerous products earlier, and finalizing lifesaving safety standards.”

With a couple of dozen recalls already on the books in January, Chris Harvey at Sedgwick predicts large numbers in 2026, as well.

“But just because the number of recalls is increasing doesn't necessarily mean that we're seeing a less safe marketplace with products,” he said. “In some ways, there's a silver lining — it’s not a bad thing.”

Because, he added, more recalls mean fewer dangerous products falling through the cracks and making it into the hands of consumers.