Shopify Markets: How to Sell Internationally From One Store

What is Shopify Markets?

Shopify Markets is the set of international tools built into every Shopify store. A market is a country or group of countries you target, and each market can have its own currency, product prices, catalog, languages, domain or subfolder, theme and duty and tax settings. You run it all from one admin.

Shopify also supports other market types, including B2B markets, retail (POS) markets and channel markets, but for selling abroad you'll mostly work with country and region markets.

Should you use Shopify Markets or separate stores per country?

Use Markets for most brands. It keeps one catalog, one set of apps and one team workflow. Separate expansion stores make sense when local teams run each region independently, catalogs differ completely, or you need different legal entities and payouts per region.

How do currencies and pricing work in Shopify Markets?

Each market can show prices in local currency, either converted automatically or set manually per product. To actually charge shoppers in their own currency, your store must use Shopify Payments or Adyen as the primary gateway. With other providers, prices display locally but the charge converts back to your store currency.

Practical tips:

• Use rounding rules so converted prices end in clean numbers, like €49.00 instead of €48.63.
• Set fixed prices for your top sellers in key markets so they don't move with exchange rates.
• Decide whether prices include duties and taxes. EU and UK shoppers expect VAT-inclusive prices.
• If you sell into the EEA, follow the price indication rules: when announcing a discount, show the lowest price from the previous 30 days.

Should you use domains, subdomains or subfolders?

Use subfolders unless you have a specific reason not to. Shopify recommends subfolders for first-time international setups because they benefit from your primary domain's search authority and need minimal setup.

• Subfolders (example.com/de-de): easiest, strongest for SEO. For secondary markets, Shopify requires a language plus country code, such as /fr-ca.
• Subdomains (de.example.com): free, but may not benefit as strongly from your main domain's ranking.
• Country domains (example.de): each builds its own authority from scratch. Use them only with a clear local strategy.

International domains are available on Basic and higher. Shopify adds hreflang tags automatically, which tells search engines your localized pages are regional versions, not duplicates. After setup, submit each sitemap in Google Search Console, and add redirects if you ever delete a market.

How do you translate a Shopify store?

Add languages in your store settings, assign them to markets, and translate content with Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app or a third-party translation app. Translate & Adapt lets you auto-translate up to two languages for free and add unlimited manual translations.

Our take: machine translation is fine for a first pass, but have a native speaker review your homepage, top product pages, checkout messages and policies. A German shopper notices awkward copy immediately, and it costs trust.

How do duties and import taxes work on Shopify?

You can estimate and collect duties and import taxes at checkout, so international customers pay upfront instead of getting a surprise bill from the courier. This is called delivered duty paid (DDP) shipping.

1. Add an HS code and country of origin to every product. Shopify says HS codes are required for all international orders, and missing data can lead to extra charges on delivery.
2. Turn on duty collection per market in Markets settings.
3. Use a carrier that supports DDP labels if you buy labels through Shopify.
4. Check the fee: Shopify charges a small percentage per international order for duty collection, with a lower rate on Shopify Payments.

Two recent changes make this more important:

• United States: the duty-free de minimis exemption for shipments of $800 or less was suspended for all countries on August 29, 2025. Low-value parcels into the US now face duties.
• European Union: from July 1, 2026, parcels under €150 pay an interim flat customs duty of €3 per item category, replacing the old duty exemption.

If you'd rather hand off compliance entirely, Shopify's Managed Markets uses Global-e as merchant of record to handle duties, taxes and registrations for a per-order fee. It's available to businesses based in the continental US and certain stores in Canada and the UK.

Which local payment methods should you offer?

Offer the methods shoppers in each country actually use. Through Shopify Payments, eligible methods appear in each market's settings, and each one works only when the customer is in a supported country and pays in an eligible currency.

Add wallets on top: Shop Pay, Apple Pay, Google Pay and PayPal work across most markets. In the Netherlands in particular, a checkout without iDEAL | Wero will lose orders.

What are the EU VAT basics for Shopify sellers?

If you're based in the EU and your combined sales to consumers in other EU countries reach €10,000 a year, you charge each customer's local VAT rate. The One Stop Shop (OSS) lets you declare and pay that VAT through one quarterly return in your home country instead of registering everywhere.

• Union OSS: for EU-based sellers shipping within the EU.
• IOSS (Import OSS): for goods shipped from outside the EU in consignments up to €150. You collect VAT at checkout so the customer doesn't pay at the door.
• Shopify can calculate VAT by customer location once you add your registrations in tax settings.

For country-specific advice, see our pages on working with brands in Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, France and Spain.

What about selling to the UK and US?

The UK and US each have their own rules, separate from the EU.

• United Kingdom: for consignments of £135 or less sent directly to UK consumers, the overseas seller must charge and account for UK VAT at the point of sale, which means registering for UK VAT. Above £135, normal import VAT and customs rules apply. More in our United Kingdom page.
• United States: there's no federal VAT, but sales tax is set by state, and each state has its own economic nexus thresholds. Since de minimis ended, collecting duties at checkout matters for EU and UK brands shipping to US customers. See our United States page.

Tax rules change often. Confirm your obligations with an accountant in each region before you launch a market.

How we can help

We set up Shopify Markets as part of our Shopify development work: market structure, subfolders, translations, local payment methods and theme changes for each region. We work in English, Spanish, Catalan and Hebrew, and handle the store setup while your accountant handles the tax registrations.