How to Sell Internationally on Shopify in 2026

You have a Shopify store that sells well at home, and you want customers in other countries. In 2026 you don't need a second store, a paid currency app or a translation plugin to get started. Shopify now handles languages, local currencies at checkout, country domains, taxes and duties from one admin, on every plan.

This guide covers what to do first and in what order. It reflects Shopify as of November 2026.

TL;DR

• Start with one market and check that it pays off once shipping, returns and taxes are included.
• Shopify Markets is available on all plans. A market is a country or group of countries that gets its own currency, language, domain, prices and product range.
• Translate with Shopify's free Translate & Adapt app: up to 20 languages on Basic, Grow and Advanced, up to 30 on Plus.
• Charging customers in their own currency requires Shopify Payments (or Adyen on Plus). With any other gateway, checkout converts the price back to your store currency.
• Taxes and duties: register for VAT where the rules require it (OSS inside the EU, IOSS for low-value imports into the EU) and collect duties at checkout so customers aren't hit with charges on delivery.
• One store or several? A new domain, currency or price list isn't a reason to open another store. We cover that decision in a separate article: Shopify Markets or separate stores?

Before you start: check that the market pays off

Start small. If you have no visitors, enquiries or distribution plan for a country, don't jump in with a full launch. Before you change anything in Shopify, answer a few questions:

• Where do customers already come from? Shopify reports and GA4 break down traffic and orders by country. A market that already sends you orders without any promotion is usually the best first candidate.
• What will the customer pay, and what will you keep? Add shipping, the cost of a return, local VAT or duties, payment fees and marketing to the product price. For heavy or low-priced products, this often decides it.
• What are the alternatives? Look at local competitors, their prices, delivery times and return terms.
• Who will serve the customer? Support in the local language, terms and a return policy that meet local consumer law, and a way to handle complaints.

Selsey, a Polish furniture brand selling in around eight European markets, is a good example of doing this one market at a time. On our podcast, CEO Mirosław Mikołajczak explained that after launching its own store in Germany, the company wouldn't open more markets until that one met expectations. In his words: "It's easy to launch on marketplaces, but with our own store we want to do it well."

Step 1: set up a market in Shopify Markets

Shopify Markets is the built-in way to sell to several countries from a single store. It's available on all plans, and there's no limit on the number of country or region markets. A market can be one country (say, Germany) or a group (Europe), and for each one you set:

• currency and price rounding,
• languages and a domain or subfolder,
• product prices and availability (through catalogs),
• payment methods, taxes and duties,
• theme content (market-specific customization on Advanced and above).

To begin, one market for the country you picked is enough. You can add more later and let them inherit settings from a parent market. How to structure markets at scale is covered in our article on Shopify Markets vs separate stores.

Step 2: translate your store

Language is usually the first thing a foreign customer notices. Shopify supports up to 20 languages on Basic, Grow and Advanced and up to 30 on Shopify Plus. All free Shopify themes support multiple languages; with paid or custom themes, check compatibility first.

• Translate & Adapt is Shopify's free app, installed automatically when you add a language. Manual translations are unlimited, and AI translations from Shopify are free for 2 languages (8 in select countries).
• Checkout comes with Shopify's default translations for many languages. Review customer emails (order confirmation, shipping updates) and policy pages yourself; you can translate those in Translate & Adapt too.
• Product URLs can be translated as well (for example /de/products/schreibtisch); only the fixed word products stays.
• Machine translation is a draft, not finished copy. Have product descriptions, collection names and meta descriptions reviewed by someone who knows the language and the market. Local search visibility depends on it.

Paid translation apps such as Langify and Weglot still exist, but most stores no longer need them. Shopify's own Geolocation app, on the other hand, was shut down in March 2025. Automatic domain and browser-language redirection plus the country and language selectors built into themes now do that job.

If you're building a custom Shopify theme, design it for several languages from day one: longer German words in navigation, banners with text in the local language, and sections that show only in certain markets.

Step 3: local currencies and payments

This is where Shopify has changed the most. A few years ago, a store could display prices in a foreign currency, but at checkout customers still paid in the store's base currency. That was one of the main reasons brands opened a separate store per currency.

The rule today is simple: customers can pay in their local currency only if your primary gateway is Shopify Payments (or Adyen on Shopify Plus). With any other provider, the store shows local prices, but checkout converts the total back to your store currency and charges that, and the customer may pay an extra conversion fee to their payment provider.

Shopify Payments isn't available in every country, so check the supported countries list for where your business is registered. Since March 2025 that list includes Poland and 14 other European countries; see our guide to Shopify Payments in Poland.

What to watch:

• Local payment methods are switched on per market. Shoppers in the Netherlands expect iDEAL | Wero, in Belgium Bancontact. A missing familiar payment method is a common reason for abandoned checkouts.
• Converted prices. Shopify can convert prices automatically at the current rate and round them (for example to €8.90). For key markets, set fixed prices in a catalog so they don't move with the exchange rate.
• Using a third-party gateway as your primary one means not only base-currency checkout but also a Shopify transaction fee, from 2% on Basic down to 0.2% on Plus. See our Shopify pricing guide.

Oakywood, a desk brand that has sold mostly abroad since day one, works this way. Founder Mateusz Haberny said on our podcast that the store runs on Shopify Markets in all the currencies Shopify Payments supports, and switching between versions is simple for customers.

Step 4: VAT, OSS, IOSS and duties

Shopify handles the calculations, but registration and filing are your responsibility, so plan this with your accountant. The essentials:

• Selling from one EU country to consumers in another. Up to €10,000 a year in total cross-border EU sales, you can charge your home VAT rate. Above that, you charge the customer's country rate. Instead of registering in every country, you can register for the One-Stop Shop (OSS) in your home country and file one return for all EU sales. In Shopify, add the OSS number under Settings → Taxes and duties → European Union.
• No duties between EU countries. Shopify doesn't calculate duties on shipments within the EU.
• Selling into the EU from outside it (for example from the US or UK). The Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) simplifies declaring and paying VAT on distance sales of goods imported into the EU from outside it, in consignments worth up to €150 (European Commission, checked 3 November 2026). With an IOSS registration, Shopify lets you collect that VAT at checkout, so customers don't pay it on delivery.
• Duties and import taxes at checkout. For cross-border shipments outside a customs union, customers otherwise pay duties when the parcel arrives, which often ends in refused deliveries and returns at your cost. Shopify can collect an estimate at checkout. You need HS codes and country of origin on products and a carrier that supports DDP (delivered duty paid) labels. Shopify charges a transaction fee on every order with duties calculated (as of November 2026, a temporary 0.5%, in place since February 2025).

What about Managed Markets? With Managed Markets (formerly Markets Pro), Global-e becomes the merchant of record and handles taxes, duties and local payment methods for you. It's only available to merchants based in the continental United States and to certain stores in Canada and the UK. If your business is based in the EU, registrations stay with you.

Step 5: international shipping and returns

• Shipping zones and rates are set per country or group of countries. Show cost and delivery time before checkout, ideally on the product page.
• Carriers. Check who actually delivers to the country and at what price, and for markets outside a customs union, whether they support DDP. We build integrations with carriers such as DHL, DPD, UPS and GLS.
• Returns. EU consumers have at least 14 days to withdraw from an online purchase. Your return policy must be translated and meet local consumer law. Shopify has return rules and self-serve returns in customer accounts; for bigger markets, consider a local return address.

Returns are where international expansion gets expensive fastest. We collected ten practical tips (a policy per market, EU withdrawal rules, labels, refunding duties, exchanges) in Foreign Returns on Shopify: 10 Tips for Selling Internationally.

Step 6: domains, subfolders and hreflang

Each market can have its own address:

• Subfolder, for example yourstore.com/de. The easiest to set up, and it benefits straight away from the search rankings your main domain already has. Shopify recommends it for a first setup.
• Subdomain, for example de.yourstore.com.
• Country domain, for example yourstore.de. Worth it when you have a specific strategy for that market (a recognised local brand, local campaigns, partner agreements), but each one is a separate purchase and builds visibility from zero.

All three work within a single store. A dedicated German domain no longer needs a separate Shopify instance. Shopify automatically adds hreflang tags, which tell Google which version is meant for which country and language, for every international domain and subfolder.

One store or several?

The old advice was: test a market with a translated store, and once sales take off, open a separate store or move to Shopify Plus. That's no longer the default path. Two corrections to what earlier versions of this article said:

• Shopify Advanced doesn't include extra stores. Basic, Grow and Advanced each cover one store; another store means another subscription.
• Shopify Plus includes your main store plus 9 expansion stores for one brand. Each store after that costs around €250 a month (pricing varies by region) or a revenue share.

In short: Shopify Markets separates the shopping experience, while separate stores separate operations and team ownership. A separate store makes sense when markets are run by separate teams or legal entities, need different payment gateways or a completely different theme. Currency, language, domain and pricing alone aren't reasons.

We see both setups with clients. Eveline Cosmetics ran 4 Shopify instances serving 5 stores (Poland, Germany, Ukraine, the Czech Republic and a pan-European store); in 4 months we consolidated them into one Shopify Plus instance on Shopify Markets, with zero sales downtime. The Odder Side, on the other hand, runs separate instances per market, kept in sync by an app we built, partly so each market can use its own payment gateways.

Read next: Shopify Markets or separate stores? How we choose a multi-market architecture. Structure options with examples, market inheritance, where Markets still falls short, and a 7-question checklist before you decide.

Checklist before you launch a new market

• Market chosen from data, with margin calculated after shipping, returns and taxes.
• Market created in Shopify Markets: currency, language, domain or subfolder.
• Store, policies and emails translated and reviewed by a fluent speaker.
• Shopify Payments as the primary gateway, local payment methods active for the market.
• VAT set up with your accountant (OSS or IOSS where relevant); for markets outside a customs union, a decision on duties at checkout (HS codes, DDP carrier).
• Shipping zones and rates, return policy and return address for the market.
• Analytics and campaigns split so you can judge the market's results.

How we help brands sell internationally

We usually build new markets on Shopify Plus: we set up Markets, translations and payments, connect the store to ERP, PIM and other systems, and handle migrations to Shopify when a platform change comes first. If you're planning your first international market, or wondering whether your stores could be merged into one, let's talk.