Shopify International Shipping: Set It Up Step by Step
Shopify international shipping takes five settings, in this order: add the country to an active market, give it a shipping zone with rates, decide whether shoppers pay duties at checkout or on delivery, add HS codes and country of origin to your products so labels and customs forms can be created, and say all of it in your shipping policy. Skip the first step and the other four do nothing, because shoppers in a country outside your active markets cannot place an order.
Shopify’s pages on shipping zones and rates, duties and import taxes and customs documentation are the sources for every setting here (read October 23, 2026).
Step 1: Sell to the country
Shopify ties shipping to Markets. Before you can add a shipping zone for a new country, the country must be in a market and that market must be active; customers in inactive markets cannot check out. Add the country under Markets, activate the market, then go on to rates.
A market also carries the currency, language and price settings for that country, so decide those at the same time. If you only want to test demand in one or two countries, a small market with just those countries keeps the rest of your setup unchanged.
Step 2: Shipping zones and rates
Rates live in Settings > Shipping and delivery, inside a shipping profile. One General profile is enough when all products ship the same way; a custom profile is for products that ship differently (heavy, fragile, made to order).
- Open the profile and, in Shipping zones, click Add zone.
- Name the zone (for example “Europe” or “UK”), select its countries in Regions and click Done.
- Click Add shipping option and choose the rate.
- Click Save.
A country can sit in only one zone within a profile’s location group, so remove it from the old zone before adding it to a new one.
You have two kinds of rate. Flat rates are prices you set: one fee per order, free above an order value, or tiers by weight or value. Carrier or app calculated rates come from the carrier from the order’s weight, dimensions and destination. Built-in integrations such as USPS in the United States and Canada Post in Canada are available on all plans; connecting your own UPS, FedEx or USPS account needs third-party carrier-calculated shipping. For international parcels, a flat rate is easier to explain but you carry the difference when a heavy order goes far. Our Shopify shipping strategy guide compares the approaches.
Shopify is gradually moving stores from shipping profiles to shipping options by market. If your admin already shows shipping options inside each market, the same decisions apply there and your old rates were migrated for you.
Step 3: Duties and import taxes
When a parcel crosses a border, customs can charge duties and import taxes. Customs sets the amount from the product’s classification (its HS code), its origin and the destination’s rules, including de minimis thresholds below which some charges do not apply, and any tariffs charged on top.
You can let that happen on delivery, or collect an estimate at checkout:
| Customer pays on delivery (often called DDU) | Collected at checkout (DDP) | |
|---|---|---|
| What the shopper sees at checkout | Product price and shipping only | Product price, shipping and estimated duties and import taxes |
| At the door | The carrier asks for duties and fees before handing over the parcel | Nothing more to pay, if the estimate and the label match |
| What you set up | Clear wording in your shipping policy | Duty collection in Shopify, HS codes on every product, DDP labels |
| Extra cost to you | None from Shopify | A transaction fee on the collected amounts (see Shopify’s duties pages for the current rate) |
| Risk | Refused parcels and return shipping when shoppers will not pay | Some destinations, order types and checkout customizations are not supported |
Shopify’s Help Center tells you to start with its considerations page, because unsupported destinations and order types decide whether duty collection works for your store at all. If it does, you need three more things: HS codes on your products, DDP labels from the carrier so the carrier knows duties were prepaid, and commercial invoices where the destination requires them. Shipments between the United States, Mexico and Canada also have a USMCA compliance checklist.
Our opinion: if most of your international orders go to a few countries with high duties or strict collection on delivery, collecting at checkout is worth the setup, because every parcel a shopper refuses at the door comes back at your cost. If international orders are rare and low value, start with “customer pays on delivery” and state it plainly before checkout.
Step 4: Labels and customs forms
Shopify Shipping labels for international parcels are available to stores based in the United States, Canada and Australia. Elsewhere you buy labels from your carrier or an app. In the United States and Canada, the Shopify Fulfillment Network app (run with Flexport) can store and ship stock for you, depending on eligibility; a 3PL for Shopify is the other route.
A Shopify label for a shipment that needs a customs declaration cannot be created until every item has:
- an HS code of at least 6 digits;
- a country or region of origin (where it was made or assembled);
- a description, quantity, value and weight.
Add HS codes and origin once on each product page (Products > a product > Shipping, with Physical product on), with the bulk editor or an inventory CSV, and they are reused on every label. Several carriers, including DHL Express and UPS, send customs documents electronically for supported destinations, so you only print the label. The details of finding codes and filling forms are in our guide to customs forms and HS codes.
Step 5: Say it in your shipping policy
Edit the policy under Settings > Policies. For international orders it should say which countries you ship to, the delivery times you expect, and who pays duties and import taxes. If you chose “customer pays on delivery”, write that the carrier may ask for payment before delivery and what happens to refused parcels. Shopify can generate and keep the shipping policy updated from your settings, but you are responsible for what it says.
Example: shipping from the US to Europe
A US store selling 0.5 kg ceramic mugs wants to add Germany, France and the Netherlands:
- Create a market “EU core” with the three countries and activate it.
- In the General profile, add a zone “EU core” with a flat rate, plus free shipping above an order value that covers the label.
- Read Shopify’s duty considerations; if supported, turn on duty collection at checkout so EU shoppers see the full cost before paying.
- Add HS code and “United States” as origin to each mug product, so labels and customs data fill in automatically.
- Add a “Shipping to the EU” paragraph to the shipping policy.
Buy the first few labels by hand and compare the carrier’s price with the flat rate you charge before you promote the new countries. More on rates and returns is in the shipping and returns hub.
FAQ
Does Shopify ship internationally? Shopify lets you sell and ship to other countries once they are in an active market with shipping rates. Shopify Shipping labels for international parcels are available to stores in the United States, Canada and Australia.
Who pays duties on international Shopify orders? By default the customer pays them on delivery. You can instead collect an estimate of duties and import taxes at checkout, which needs HS codes on your products and carries a transaction fee.
Do I need HS codes? Shopify requires an HS code of at least 6 digits and a country of origin on every item before it creates a label for a shipment that needs a customs declaration. They also decide the duty rate.
Can I use Shopify Shipping labels outside the US? International Shopify Shipping labels are available to stores based in Canada and Australia as well as the United States. Stores elsewhere buy labels through their carrier or a shipping app.