How to Set Up International Shipping on Shopify

Start in Shopify admin under Settings, then Markets. Shopify Markets is Shopify's built-in internationalization feature. Turning it on lets you choose the countries you sell to and set currency, language, pricing, and domains for each one, so shoppers see a localized storefront instead of your domestic version.

You can start with a handful of high-demand markets and expand later. Markets localizes the storefront, but it doesn't set your shipping rates, and duty calculation depends on your plan — native on Advanced/Plus, end-to-end with Managed Markets, or a third-party app on lower plans. Those are configured separately, which is why the next steps matter. For the bigger picture of how the pieces fit together, see our Shopify international shipping guide.

Go to Settings, then Shipping and delivery, and create a zone for each market or country. A zone groups destinations that share the same rates. Inside each zone, add your rates: a flat rate is simple, weight-based rates scale with heavier orders, and carrier-calculated rates bill the real postage from UPS, FedEx, or DHL.

Match the rate to the destination rather than using one flat worldwide price, or far-away orders will lose you money. Remember that shipping charges are only part of what the customer owes — duties and taxes stack on top, and they are calculated separately.

Duties and taxes come from three inputs: the product's HS code, its country of origin, and the destination country's rules. Add each product's HS code and origin in Shopify, then estimate the duty and import VAT or GST per destination. Get the HS code wrong and the estimate is wrong, so classification quality matters more than the tool you use.

Low-value thresholds have changed recently and are easy to get wrong. There is no active US $800 de minimis allowance — it was suspended in August 2025. The EU now applies a flat €3 duty per item type on parcels up to €150 (from July 2026), the UK exempts duty under £135, and Canada uses CAD 20 by mail, CAD 40 by courier, and CAD 60 for gifts by mail. Estimate a specific product with our Shopify landed cost calculator, or compare the tools that automate classification and collection in the best apps for international shipping.

Landed cost is the product price plus freight, insurance, duty, and import tax. Show that single number at checkout and the customer makes one informed decision instead of bracing for a courier invoice. Shopify can estimate duties and import taxes natively on eligible plans when you supply HS codes, and third-party apps calculate a guaranteed landed cost in the customer's local currency.

Whichever route you take, the goal is the same: no charges owed after payment. See how that works in practice in our guide to showing duties at checkout.

Do not launch on assumptions — place a real test order. Ship to an address in one of your new markets, using a live carrier rate and a product with a known HS code. Check that the shipping rate, duty estimate, and total shown at checkout match the customs documents generated with the order.

Then track the parcel through delivery and confirm the customer owes nothing more if you chose DDP. A test order exposes wrong zones, missing HS codes, and underpriced duties while they are still cheap to fix — before real customers, and real refunds, are involved.