Despite its lengthy history, the LEGO Group isn't perfect, and mistakes appear now and then, from instruction manuals to an abundance of typos.
The LEGO Group is filled with hard-working designers and teams of people making the next LEGO sets coming to shelves, and try as they might, people inevitably make mistakes. Despite efforts to catch any mistakes before the set's launch, some have been known to slip through the cracks, in various forms.
Read on for a guide to the LEGO Group's history of mistakes and errors, including many that have occurred recently or will be in early 2026 releases.
Instruction manual mistakes
Mistakes in instruction manuals are some of the more common types of errors that can be found across LEGO history, usually coming in the form of misplaced steps in the booklets, which can confuse builders trying to put together their latest purchase.
Take the mistake in 10312 Jazz Club, for instance. That error saw a couple of steps shifted around in the manual, leading you to believe that you should have been building bag 12 for longer than you would think. You would end up with no pieces available to you for the last two steps of bag 12. Thankfully, this was just a mistake, as some steps for the following group of bags had been moved a couple of pages backwards in the manual. That's a fairly easy fix on the LEGO Group's part, but one that they could only do for future copies of the model.
Alfredo_BE shared another example of LEGO instruction manual errors, shining a spotlight on a mistake in the booklet for 31139 Cosy House. The steps on page 82 would have you believe that certain elements would need to be removed between instructions numbered two and three. In reality, these steps had just been mixed up, but the digital copy of them still shows the error.
The classic typos
Typos have been the most common kind of LEGO errors recently, with mistakes featured in both
Unfortunately, the story isn't quite over yet, as this replacement sheet now has an incorrect logo and missing bolts for the plaque. It's not a typo, but it's also not correct just yet.
Looking ahead to LEGO NINJAGO's biggest 2026 set so far,
Fans were asked to get in contact with the LEGO Group’s customer service department and request the replacement tiles. Swapping them out on the train’s carriages was a quick fix, as the tiles are on the exterior and not anchored in by any other pieces.
The train-based LEGO typos continue in the huge Hogwarts Express set. A mistake made in the set’s information plaque is the reference to ‘King Cross Station’, but the transport hub is actually called ‘King’s Cross Station’. The second error on this plaque is one for diehard train enthusiasts to pick up on. The plaque describes the Hogwarts Express as a ‘GWR 5900 Class 5972 Locomotive’, but there’s no such thing as a GWR 5900 Class. Instead, the engine used for the Harry Potter movies was the GWR 4900 Class 5972 Olton Hall, originally built in 1937.
Sticking to LEGO Harry Potter, there's a typo in the retiring Hogwarts Icons model. 76391 Hogwarts Icons Collectors’ Edition misspells the Wizarding World school’s motto, writing the last word as titillandos, instead of titillandus. This may mean that the LEGO Group recreated the emblem, rather than using an official asset provided to them by the partner, which almost certainly would have had the correct spelling.
Sticker and print errors
It's not just typos that can appear in LEGO stickers, either. Other errors spotted in decoration sheets include another mistake in
Reference inaccuracies
LEGO errors can affect sticker sheets in other ways, sometimes leading to the LEGO Group referencing the wrong Easter egg. It's a rare kind of LEGO error, but it recently cropped up in the Star Trek gift-with-purchase.
40768 Type-15 Shuttlepod has an interior LCARS system display featuring the text ‘Stardate 44885.5’, a reference to Season 4, Episode 24 of the show, in which Chief Engineer Geordi La Forge’s shuttle is apprehended by Romulans.
That date is further backed up by an image of a D’Deridex-class Romulan Warbird on the model’s sticker. However, the official listing for 40768 Type-15 Shuttlepod notes that the display should read ‘Stardate 45076.3’, which would make more sense considering that’s from Season 5, Episode 3 ‘Ensign Ro’, in which the character the set's minifigure is based on makes her debut.
As Ensign Ro didn’t appear until much later in Star Trek: The Next Generation, her inclusion in the LEGO Icons promotional set and what should be the system’s Stardate would have made perfect sense, but the confusion now connects the GWP to a different character, season and episode of the show. For Star Trek buffs, it's an annoying mistake that will require yet another replacement sticker sheet to fix.
Box mishaps
Box mishaps have occurred in LEGO history as well. TheMon420's error with the packaging for the LEGO The Office set is especially interesting, seeing part of the box appear in dark blue instead of black. This resulted in a strange effect on the box, with comments suggesting that it is down to a printing error as opposed to being in direct sunlight for too long.
Sometimes, these mishaps are just direct errors, as was the case with 75309 Republic Gunship. That situation saw the box for the Ultimate Collector Series LEGO Star Wars set printed with the wrong logo. Instead of the appropriate Republic logo, the box and instructions for the set’s initial print run featured the Imperial logo. While they are similar, this was still inaccurate and an easy mistake for knowledgeable fans to spot and call out.
The LEGO Group’s Senior Marketing Manager Ivan Podryadchykov explained the situation to Brick Fanatics (and other LEGO Fan Media) in 2021.
“We want to say that it was a genuine mistake,” Ivan explains. “It was never our purpose to create additional commercial momentum by adding an Empire symbol on the packaging. We believe that the value of the model is still very high, even though there is a mistake on the packaging and building instructions.”
Over on TikTok, leggomyjameso dug deep into LEGO history to spot a box error in the SpongeBob SquarePants theme. The Mrs Puff's Boating School model had an incorrectly built lighthouse model on the box, despite the instructions telling you to move the transparent element a stud back. The box errors would go on to continue in the LEGO Group's 90th anniversary, impacting 11021 90 Years of Play.
The Classic set recreates iconic LEGO toys and models from across the past nine decades, including Friends’ 41340 Friendship House. The box for the anniversary model incorrectly states that the 722-piece mini-doll set launched in 2017, but it actually hit shelves in 2018.
These are just a selection of the many errors across sets, boxes and instructions from the company's lengthy history, and they will almost certainly not be the last.
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