Meituan · Full chronicle and history

On November 3, a netizen posted a video demonstrating that when using a certain domestic Android phone to dial the 120 emergency number, the screen failed to enter the call interface. Instead, it popped up 'shake-to-open' ads for Douyin Lite, Meituan, JD.com, etc. The slightest movement caused automatic redirection, making it difficult to close.

On October 30, a Meituan delivery rider posted a video of an on-site reconciliation with a merchant: for a 279-yuan order, the rider's delivery fee was only 3 yuan, while the merchant's backend showed a deduction of 35.69 yuan for delivery service fees, with the actual amount received being about 205 yuan. Netizens questioned the platform for taking cuts from both sides.

On October 19, a Meituan dedicated delivery rider posted his 27th rights defense video on Bilibili, saying that after 6 years of working as a dedicated rider no entity had paid social insurance for him, and that for nearly 5 years he had been registered as an individual business owner. The app shows that his labor contract has been approved but cannot be opened. The case is scheduled to be heard at the Tinghu District Court in Yancheng on October 28; at the last hearing the contractor failed to appear.

On October 9, some netizens said that when they filled in “Chapman To” as the delivery contact name on Meituan, the page prompted that the “name contains non-compliant content,” while the same name worked normally on Meituan Shangou, and the comment section questioned whether the platform was carrying out political censorship.

Recently, Meituan handed out "Mid-Autumn Joy" gift boxes to employees and organized check-in photos; when delivery riders opened them, they found the boxes empty inside, and a netizen submitted a report exposing the incident.

On September 24, Meituan's commission rates reached the top 3 on the Weibo lifestyle trending list. Multiple restaurant merchants posted screenshots of their orders: a 30.8 yuan set meal yielded an estimated income of only 6.24 yuan, a 20.8 yuan rice noodle dish only 5.75 yuan, and a 16 yuan clear soup noodle dish only 3.11 yuan, complaining that their income is too low after platform discounts, commissions, and delivery fees are layered on top of each other.

On September 23, a Meituan autonomous delivery vehicle drove against traffic on a motor vehicle lane in Haigang District, Qinhuangdao, Hebei, causing road congestion.

On September 19, the Beijing Municipal Market Regulation Bureau announced that it has launched investigations into four online hotel and travel platforms—Fliggy, Tongcheng, Tujia, and Meituan—for suspected illegal activities. On the same day, the China Hotel Association pointed out that these platforms are involved in issues such as high commissions, forced bundling, and data opacity, and called on them to make their search ranking and commission rate rules public.

On September 9, Hefei, Anhui, introduced new safety supervision regulations for food delivery, requiring riders to go offline for 20 minutes after delivering for more than four consecutive hours, and implementing joint punishment for traffic violations. Riders generally disagree with this, pointing out that low delivery fees are the primary cause of overtime work and violations.

On August 22, 2026, multiple workers revealed on social media platforms that internet platforms such as Meituan Food Delivery and cleaning services force workers to buy cleaning kits and other equipment worth several hundred yuan before assigning them orders, allegedly a disguised form of illegal deposit collection.

Meituan officially announces Jing Tian as Trendy Play Beauty Ambassador; the related Weibo posts and some promotional materials were later found to have been deleted or taken down.

After the Jinjiang shoe factory fire, local relevant departments intervened to interview merchants, demanding that they not deliver flowers to the shoe factory area. Meituan's system blocked the flower delivery function in that area, and some merchants said the delivered flowers were taken away by traffic police.

On July 10, 2026, media reported that Meituan has been laying off staff in multiple departments, including in-store group buying and instant delivery, since May, with some teams seeing cuts of up to 20%. Meituan responded that fewer than 2,000 people had actually left over the two months, describing it as normal staff turnover.

On May 28, 2026, the Beijing and Shanghai Municipal Market Supervision and Administration Bureaus signed a cooperation framework agreement, established a coordinated governance mechanism for online catering food safety, and jointly carried out administrative guidance on Meituan, Taobao Shanguo, and JD Food Delivery.

In late May 2026, multiple netizens posted on social platforms claiming that Meituan had launched a new round of layoffs involving multiple technical positions such as product, R&D and testing, with layoff ratios for some positions reportedly reaching 25% to 50%.

On May 26, 2026, a Meituan delivery rider in Heilongjiang revealed that he got into an argument with a university section chief while yielding on a narrow road because he did not give way first, was verbally abused by the other party, and was subsequently fired directly by the station leadership without any investigation.

On March 5, Ms. Zhou from Zhangjiakou, Hebei, stated that a Meituan agent demanded her Hunan restaurant offer large discount coupons at the merchant's own expense. After she refused because each order resulted in a loss, the agent replied, "We have plenty of ways to deal with you."

Host Liu Wen once spoke up for food delivery couriers and questioned Meituan's high commission rates. On January 6, she posted a video stating that her consumer fraud rights defense failed to receive compensation; instead, she was ruled as defaming, with the court issuing a prejudgment and sentencing her to apologize for one month and pay 500,000 RMB without her knowledge.

On November 28, CCTV, together with Meituan, released a short film in which a white-collar graphic designer quits her job to deliver food, saying that food delivery brings freedom and brings her closer to her dreams; the film drew widespread mockery from netizens.

In February 2025, Meituan, JD.com and several other platforms successively issued announcements stating that they would gradually start paying social insurance for food delivery riders. Media professional Xiang Dongliang calculated that Meituan has about 820,000 full-time and stable riders, and that paying the five social insurances and the housing provident fund at the minimum contribution base would cost 15.5 billion yuan per year, exceeding Meituan's net profit of more than 13.8 billion yuan in 2023. He believes the platforms cannot bear the full cost and will merely open accounts to make the deductions on riders' behalf.