If you sell to customers in Great Britain and ship any of those orders from a warehouse, shop or 3PL outside the UK, Shopify has changed how it decides whether to charge UK VAT at checkout. Larger orders that your order routing sends to a non-UK location can now go through checkout without VAT, so it pays to check your setup before the next big sales weekend.
What changed
On 23 October 2026, Shopify announced in its changelog that it now uses the location chosen by your order routing to work out VAT on orders to Great Britain. Shopify compares this to the way it already handles tax on orders shipping to the United States.
In practice, the location your order routing assigns to an order now decides the VAT treatment. Having a UK location somewhere in your store is not enough on its own.
The changelog sets out three rules:
- Orders above £135 sent from outside the UK are treated as imports. When an order's value before tax and shipping is over £135 GBP and routing sends it to a non-UK location, checkout leaves VAT off because Shopify handles the order as an import.
- Having a UK location doesn't change that. The rule applies even when your store also has a location in the UK. What counts is the location order routing chooses for that specific order.
- Some orders are out of scope. Three groups keep the old behaviour: orders worth £135 or less, deliveries to Northern Ireland, and orders that already existed before the update.
Shopify lists two ways to keep charging VAT at checkout on the affected orders: change your order routing so those orders are assigned to a UK location, or collect duties and import taxes at checkout.
Who it affects
This matters mainly to stores that sell into Great Britain from more than one place, or from outside the UK altogether. Typical examples:
- An EU-based store, for instance in Germany, the Netherlands or France, that ships British orders from its home warehouse.
- A brand with both a UK warehouse and an EU warehouse, where order routing sometimes sends British orders to the EU site, for example when stock runs low in the UK.
- A store that has just moved to Shopify and copied over several locations without reviewing how orders are routed between them.
The changelog only describes import treatment for orders routed outside the UK, so British orders routed to a UK location are not the target of this change. Confirm your own tax setup with your adviser. If your British orders are almost always £135 or less, the new import treatment does not apply to those orders, but any order above £135 routed outside the UK still falls under it.
Stores shipping only to Northern Ireland are outside this change, as Shopify excludes those orders.
The change does not rewrite past orders. Orders that already existed before the change are not affected, according to Shopify.
What to do now
Work through this checklist with whoever manages your fulfilment and your tax settings. For the tax side, confirm the outcome with your accountant or tax adviser, because the right answer depends on how your business is registered and how your goods reach the UK.
- List every location that can fulfil orders to Great Britain. Include warehouses, retail stores used for shipping, and any 3PL or app-managed locations. Note which ones are inside the UK and which are not.
- Review your order routing settings. Check which rules decide where an order to Great Britain is sent, and in what order they apply. Look for situations where a British order could fall through to a non-UK location, such as when stock at the UK site is low.
- Look at your order values. If many British orders are above £135 before tax and shipping, the new import treatment is more likely to affect you. If nearly all are below that, the impact is smaller.
- Decide which route fits your business. Shopify's two options are to route these orders to a UK location, or to collect duties and import taxes at checkout. Which one is right depends on your stock, your carriers and your VAT position, so agree it with your adviser before changing anything.
- Test before you rely on it. After changing routing rules, place a test order to a British address above £135, using a test payment method or an order you then cancel and refund, and check which location it is assigned to and how tax appears at checkout. Change routing outside busy trading hours, because a routing mistake can send orders to a location without stock.
- Brief your customer service team. Customers may notice a different tax line at checkout than before. Make sure your team can explain how VAT and any import charges work for British orders, and update your shipping or FAQ page if it describes VAT for UK customers.
- Check recent orders to Great Britain. Shopify announced the change on 23 October 2026 but gives no separate start date, so look back a little further. Find orders over £135 (before tax and shipping) routed to a location outside the UK, check whether any went through without VAT at checkout, and ask your adviser how to handle them.
The changelog does not say how VAT is collected on orders treated as imports once they leave checkout. Don't assume. Ask your adviser and your carrier who is responsible for import VAT and any charges at delivery.
Deadlines and dates
- 23 October 2026: Shopify published the change and described it in the present tense ("is now calculated"), with no separate rollout date.
- Existing orders: orders placed before the change are not affected.
There is no deadline to act, but every order to Great Britain above £135 (before tax and shipping) that is routed outside the UK is now treated as an import, and VAT isn't charged at checkout unless you route it to a UK location or collect duties and import taxes at checkout. If your setup depends on charging VAT at checkout for those orders, review it now rather than after peak season.
Why this matters for stores selling across Europe
If you sell to Great Britain from an EU warehouse that also serves your other markets, British orders follow the same routing rules as everything else. That makes the link between fulfilment location and UK VAT easy to miss. It also shows why tax settings, Markets and order routing should be planned together when you expand, not configured separately by different people.
If you are setting up Great Britain and Ireland as markets, our [UK and Ireland guide](/shopify-uk-ireland) covers the wider setup. For multi-country tax, currencies and languages, see [selling in Europe](/shopify-europe). If you're moving several regional shops into one Shopify store, the [multi-store to Shopify Markets guide](/multi-store-to-shopify-markets) explains how locations and markets fit together.
Planning a move to Shopify or selling in more countries? [Talk to Veriqo](/contact).