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.

International shipping from Canada to the United States

Depending on your shipping setup, review the shipping carriers that you can use in Shopify to ship from Canada to the United States:

If you're using DAP (Delivered At Place) shipping for shipments to the US, then consider diversifying your shipping carriers support for shipments to the US with Shopify with either DAP or DDP:
If you're using DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) shipping for shipments to the US, then you can use Canada Post DDP or DHL Express DDP to ship to the US.

Understanding postal carrier duty calculations and CUSMA compliance

Postal carriers such as Canada Post use a different duty calculation method than commercial carriers, which affects how preferential trade agreements such as CUSMA (Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement)/USMCA (United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement) are applied.

Postal carriers must charge a flat tariff rate based on the country of origin (COO), regardless of your product's HS code or CUSMA compliance status. Canada Post shipments to the United States are charged a flat rate duty based on the US Global Surcharge Duty (Sec 122), regardless of whether your products qualify for CUSMA preferential rates. This means that even if your products are CUSMA-compliant and you have proper documentation, postal carriers can't apply preferential treaty rates. This is a limitation of the postal system and not an error in your setup.

However, you can activate postal duty rates in your Shopify admin. When activated, this setting calculates duties for packages shipped to the United States ad valorum (based on the value of the shipment's contents) and country of origin. To learn more about this setting, refer to Postal duty rates. If you want to use postal duty rates, then ensure that your products have a COO added to them. If you don't have both an HS code and a country of origin for your product, then duties calculations aren't performed.

If you want to take advantage of CUSMA preferential rates, then use commercial carriers such as DHL Express for DDP shipments. Commercial carriers can apply HS codes and preferential treaties to calculate accurate duty rates.

Reshipping services such as ChitChats or Stallion Express are considered commercial carriers, and can apply preferential treaty rates to shipping labels.

Consider adding HS codes to your products even if postal carriers don't use HS codes for duty calculation. HS codes might be required for customs clearance and commercial carriers use them for accurate duty calculations.

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.

As of August 29, 2025, de minimis doesn't apply to shipments to the United States. As a result, some carriers might restrict or cease shipping to the United States. If you ship to the United States, then confirm that your carrier is not affected. Learn more about these changes, and how to manage your costs for duties and import taxes.

If you can't ship to a country, then you need to update and edit your shipping profiles 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

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, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain
Building number	Belgium, Brazil, Germany, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Spain	Chile
Neighborhood	Brazil, Costa Rica, Kuwait, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Vietnam	Chile, Colombia, Indonesia, Mexico

The requirement for each additional address field depends on the customer's country or region. This behavior can't be changed by merchants or Shopify Support. If a customer needs to include additional address details for a country where a field is optional, such as a neighborhood or building number, then they can enter that information in the Address line 2 field at checkout.

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

Additional tax fields in checkout

If you sell to customers in certain countries and regions, then the checkout might display additional required fields (see Countries and regions with additional tax fields below for details on the relevant countries and checkout scenarios). These fields are displayed after the shipping address has been entered, grouped with the payment details in a section titled "Additional Information".

Customers in these countries and regions enter additional information in these fields. 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.

After a customer places an order, you can find their additional information on their order details page.

Considerations for additional tax fields

Review the following considerations about the additional tax fields in checkout:

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 an order's tax fields in the admin. Updates can only be made using the orderUpdate mutation. If your customer enters incorrect information, then you can use an app to update the details, or cancel the order and ask the customer to place their order again. Learn more about how to update tax fields using the GraphQL Admin API.
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 Shipping with DHL Express on orders shipping to Brazil or China. 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.
For international orders fulfilled using Managed Markets, customer tax IDs will be added to commercial invoices for countries where they are required, including Brazil, China, and South Korea.

Countries and regions with additional tax fields

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.
China	Destination is China, fulfilled from outside China	People's Republic of China Resident Identity Card (resident ID)
Italy	Destination is Italy, shop billing country 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.
Mexico	Destination is Mexico, fulfilled from outside Mexico	Registro Federal de Contribuyentes (RFC)
South Korea	Destination is South Korea, fulfilled from outside South Korea	Personal Customs Clearance Code (PCCC)

Additional tax fields are available in early access in the following countries and regions:

Countries and regions with additional tax fields that are in early access
Country/region	Shipping origin/destination	Required information
Chile	Destination is Chile	Rol Único Tributario (RUT)
Colombia	Destination is Colombia	Cédula (identification number) and Tipo Cédula (type of identification)
Costa Rica	Destination is Costa Rica	Identificación (identification number)
Ecuador	Destination is Ecuador	Cédula de Identidad (CI) or Registro Único de Contribuyentes (RUC)
Guatemala	Destination is Guatemala	Número de Identificación Tributaria (NIT)
Indonesia	Destination is Indonesia	Nomor Pokok Wajib Pajak (NPWP)
Malaysia	Destination is Malaysia	Tax Identification Number (TIN) or Registration Number
Mexico	Destination is Mexico, shop billing country 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	Destination is Paraguay	Cédula de Identidad Civil (CI) or Registro Único del Contribuyente (RUC)
Peru	Destination is Peru	Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI), Registro Único del Contribuyente (RUC), or Carné de Extranjería (CE)
Portugal	Destination is Portugal	Número de Identificação Fiscal (NIF)
Spain	Destination is Spain	Número de Identificación Fiscal (NIF) or Documento Nacional de Identidad (DNI)
Taiwan	Destination is Taiwan, fulfilled from outside Taiwan	National ID Number
Turkey	Destination is Turkey	Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Kimlik Numarası (T.C. Kimlik No.)

You can use the theme editor to customize how additional tax fields are displayed at checkout.

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

International shipping disruptions

Depending on where you ship, you might encounter shipping surcharges, disruptions, or service suspensions. You can monitor disruptions to shipping operations by referring to your carrier's shipping alert page or by contacting their support teams.