International shipping considerations

Certain countries and regions have specific requirements about international shipping. Review the following countries to determine what you might need to change so that you can ship to these areas. This page isn't an exhaustive list of places with specific rules about international shipping. Always research the shipping laws for the countries and regions where you want to ship to before accepting orders from customers in those regions.

Note

Harmonized System (HS) codes are required for international orders. In addition, the description of the products in the order must be detailed, precise, and use plain language.

To reduce the risk of delays, fines, or returns, shipping labels can't be printed for international orders unless they have HS codes. This applies to both Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) and Delivered Duty Unpaid (DDU) labels.

Considerations when shipping internationally

If you sell your products internationally, then you might be affected by changing regulations due to shipping carrier limitations and border closures. Make sure your shipping settings are up to date, with the services that are available.

You might need to make changes to your shipping settings to make sure the shipping options that you offer to customers are actually possible. If you need to make changes to your shipping settings, then you should communicate that changes have been made to your customers.

Check your shipping limitations

Borders and shipping limitations can change, and can affect your ability to fulfill your customer’s orders. For each country that you ship to, check the border status and local shipping carrier information to make sure you can still ship to your customers.

If you can't ship to a country, then you need to update and edit your shipping zones to reflect where you can ship orders.

If you rely on a third party to fulfill some of your orders, then you need to check whether they can fulfill orders as well. You might need to update and change the products that you offer on your store depending on your third party’s ability to fulfill orders.

Update your customers on changes to shipping

If your ability to fulfill any orders changes because of border closures or shipping carrier limitations, then you need to let your customers know that changes have happened.

You can email your customers to let them know that there might be delays in their order arriving. Communicating with your customers helps to reassure them that you’re monitoring the situation and care about their order being delivered. Letting customers know that their order might be affected by situations outside of your control also helps you manage customer expectations.

Additional address fields in checkout

Early access

Additional address fields are in early access and available by request. To request access, contact Shopify Support.

Depending on the country, the following changes are made to the checkout shipping and billing address form:

• The Address field in the checkout is replaced by additional fields for Street name and Building number. Depending on the country or region, these fields might be required.
• An additional Neighborhood field is added. Depending on the country or region, this field might be required.

Additional address fields apply to the following countries and regions:

Countries and regions with additional address fields

Fields	Mandatory for country or region	Optional for country or region
Street name	Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain
Building number	Belgium, Brazil, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain	Chile
Neighborhood	Costa Rica, Kuwait, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam	Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico

Learn more about how the additional field data can be extracted and leveraged in your third party applications.

Caution

Certain accelerated checkout options, such as PayPal, don't require the additional fields. This means customers can complete their purchase even if the fields are left unfilled.

Additional tax fields in checkout

For merchants that sell to customers in certain countries and regions, there are additional fields in the checkout process. These fields are displayed after the payment details section of the checkout page in the online store. Customers in these countries and regions enter additional information in these fields. After a customer places an order, you can find their additional information on their order details page. If your customer is a foreign national without the information specific to residents of a particular country or region, then in most cases they can enter their passport number in these fields.

Considerations for additional tax fields

• Additional tax fields are displayed in the online store only. They aren't displayed on Shopify POS or on the mobile app.
• You can't edit additional information from these fields on an order. If your customer enters incorrect information, then cancel the order and ask the customer to place their order again.
• If you ship to any countries or regions that use additional tax fields, then you might need to add the customer's information to the shipping label. Packages without additional information on the shipping label might be destroyed or returned.
• Information is automatically added to shipping labels that are purchased through Shopify Shipping. If you purchase shipping labels through a third-party shipping carrier, or a supplier purchases labels on your behalf, then contact your service to ensure that they add the additional information to shipping labels.
• Additional tax fields are in early access for some countries and regions. If a country or region in the following table is listed as early access, then you can contact Shopify Support to activate the feature for that country or region.

Countries and regions with additional tax fields

Note

If you sell to customers in any of the following regions, and you've modified your checkout to collect additional information, then remove your customizations. If you keep your customizations, then your customer must enter their information twice. If you've previously deactivated these fields and need to reactivate them, then contact Shopify Support.

Countries and regions with additional tax fields

Country/region	Shipping origin/destination	Required information
Brazil	Destination is Brazil	Cadastro de Pessoas Físicas (CPF) or Cadastro Nacional da Pessoa Jurídica (CNPJ) If you're in Brazil, then you must use the CPF/CNPJ number when issuing the government invoice for the customer. If you're outside of Brazil, then you must add the customer's CPF/CNPJ number to the shipping label.
Chile (Early access)	Destination is Chile	Rol Único Tributario (RUT)
China	Destination is China, fulfilled from outside China	People's Republic of China Resident Identity Card (resident ID)
Colombia (Early access)	Destination is Colombia	Cédula (identification number) and Tipo Cédula (type of identification)
Costa Rica (Early access)	Destination is Costa Rica	Identificación (identification number)
Ecuador (Early access)	Destination is Ecuador	Cédula de Identidad (CI) or Registro Único de Contribuyentes (RUC)
Guatemala (Early access)	Destination is Guatemala	Número de Identificación Tributaria (NIT)
Indonesia (Early access)	Destination is Indonesia	Nomor Pokok Wajib Pajak (NPWP)
Italy	Origin and destination is Italy	Codice Fiscale (CF) and Posta Elettronica Certificata (PEC) These fields aren't mandatory, because not every transaction requires an invoice. If you're located in Italy and your customer enters information in these fields, then you must issue an invoice to your customer for tax regulations and control. If the fields have been filled out at the checkout, then a banner is displayed on the order details page.
Malaysia (Early access)	Destination is Malaysia	Tax Identification Number (TIN) or Registration Number
Mexico (Early access)	Origin and destination is Mexico	Registro Federal de Contribuyentes (RFC), Régimen Fiscal (the type of identification), and Uso de CFDI (tax use) These fields aren't mandatory, because not every transaction requires an invoice. If you're located in Mexico and your customer enters information in these fields, then you must issue an invoice to your customer for tax regulations and control. If the fields have been filled out at the checkout, then a banner is displayed on the order details page.
Paraguay (Early access)	Destination is Paraguay	Cédula de Identidad Civil (CI) or Registro Único del Contribuyente (RUC)
Peru (Early access)	Destination is Peru	Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI), Registro Único del Contribuyente (RUC), or Carné de Extranjería (CE)
Portugal (Early access)	Outside Portugal	Número de Identificação Fiscal (NIF)
South Korea	Destination is South Korea, fulfilled from outside South Korea	Personal Customs Clearance Code (PCCC)
Spain (Early access)	Destination is Spain	Número de Identificación Fiscal (NIF) or Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI)
Taiwan (Early access)	Destination is Taiwan, fulfilled from outside Taiwan	National ID Number
Turkey (Early access)	Destination is Turkey	Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Kimlik Numarası (T.C. Kimlik No.)

Learn more about how to create and query tax fields using the GraphQL Admin API.