The switch to international selling in Shopify is a Market, a shipping profile, HS codes on every variant, and a choice about who pays duty. Get the choice right and packages clear customs and deliver on their promised date. Get it wrong and a share of orders are held, refused or returned. Shopify's own wording is cited below, read from help.shopify.com and shopify.com on 2026-08-11.
Markets, rates, duty terms, HS codes, and which carrier prints the label. Miss any one and orders stall at customs.
Shopify handles international geography through Markets. A Market is a country, a group of countries or a region, plus a set of overrides that make the storefront speak to that audience. In Shopify's own words, Markets “let you define audiences using conditions and tailor their experience with customizations, including currency, language, pricing, and theme content.”
Open the Markets page in the Shopify admin. Add a Market for each destination you want to serve. Attach the shipping profile that includes those countries and set a rate. Currency and language overrides are optional but usually paid for by themselves in higher conversion — a UK buyer sees GBP and English, not USD and a translator warning.
Every cross-border parcel arrives with two extra charges the carrier collects at customs: import duty and destination-country tax. Somebody pays them. Shopify offers a plain choice.
| Incoterm | Who pays duty and tax | When it is charged | Shopify's own wording |
|---|---|---|---|
| DDP — Delivered Duty Paid | Seller | At checkout, added to the order total | “This term indicates that the seller assumes responsibility for any import costs that might be payable when goods cross borders.” |
| DAP — Delivered At Place | Buyer | At the border, before the carrier will hand it over | “The customer is responsible for paying any import costs to the shipping carrier.” |
DAP is the default and the cause of most cross-border refusals: a buyer who paid $80 for a shirt does not want the courier at the door asking for $27 more before it hands the parcel over. DDP moves that money to checkout, where the number is visible while the buyer still has enthusiasm. Shopify collects DDP through Managed Markets on eligible plans and through carrier apps such as DHL Express and Zonos for stores that turn it on themselves.
Shopify is direct: “HS codes are required for all international orders.” Without them, “duties and import taxes aren't calculated for that order” even when collection is enabled. Every product variant needs an HS code and a country of origin under Product > Shipping > Customs information.
Two rules of thumb for finding the right code. First, be specific. A cotton t-shirt is 6109.10, not the four-digit chapter heading 6109; carriers and customs software use the six- or ten-digit level. Second, when in doubt, look up the tariff at the destination country's customs website and copy the code they list for that exact product, not the origin-country one. Shopify offers an HS code suggestion field powered by third-party classifiers, but a wrong classification is your problem at customs, not Shopify's.
USPS, UPS and DHL Express are integrated with discounted rates. Shopify quotes savings “up to 88%” on marketing pages; the real discount runs deeper on domestic than on international, and best on lightweight international via DHL Express or USPS Priority Mail International.
DHL Express, UPS and third-party rate shoppers install as Shopify apps and print labels against a shipper's own account. Useful when you already hold a negotiated agreement heavier than the Shopify Shipping rate.
A calculator outside Shopify that quotes USPS, UPS, DHL Express, GlobalPost and specialty international networks side by side is what usually beats a single-carrier route on the awkward parcels — long boxes, dense weights, low-volume destinations. Same declared value; different price band.
Shopify's built-in international rate is competitive on parcels that fit its integrated lanes. The moment a parcel goes long, heavy or unusual, price it on a multi-carrier calculator and compare — the delta is often three to eight dollars a parcel, which decides margin at any scale.
A few destinations and product categories are worth excluding from an international shipping profile until you have specifically dealt with them. Sanctioned countries — the current OFAC list, which changes — cannot be shipped to at all. Some carriers refuse or restrict destinations they cannot serve reliably, and Shopify's help center notes the platform enforces regulatory rules such as EU GPSR product safety and California Proposition 65 for shipments landing in those markets.
Alcohol, tobacco, cannabis products, most weapons and hazmat lithium above threshold cannot go through Shopify Shipping's default carrier flows. Handle them through specialist services or leave those product-line variants restricted from international profiles.
Shopify's help pages are revised without notice. When you build the shipping profile, click through the same articles and confirm the wording still matches; a paragraph that read one way on this date may read another way six months on.
Add a Market from the Markets page in the Shopify admin, either a single country or a grouped region, then create a shipping profile that includes those countries with a rate. Shopify's own line is that Markets “let you define audiences using conditions and tailor their experience.”
In DAP the buyer pays duties and taxes to the carrier before delivery. In DDP the seller collects them at checkout and prepays them. Shopify offers DDP collection through Managed Markets and through carrier apps like DHL Express.
Yes. Shopify states that HS codes are required for all international orders and that without them duties and import taxes are not calculated even when collection is enabled. Add the HS code and the country of origin on every product variant.
US-based Shopify stores can buy discounted labels from USPS, UPS and DHL Express through Shopify Shipping. Canada Post and Sendle round out the label options for other origin countries. FedEx does not integrate as a discounted label channel.
When the parcel is heavy or oversized, or the origin is not one Shopify's DHL rate covers cleanly. A multi-carrier calculator that also quotes USPS Priority Mail International, GlobalPost and UPS Worldwide often lands a cheaper price than any single-carrier route inside Shopify.