How to restrict Shopify checkout by country

Shipping zones: the built-in way

In Settings > Shipping and delivery, only add the countries you ship to. Customers can then only choose shipping addresses in those countries. For most stores this is the first step and it costs nothing.

Shipping zones only look at the shipping address. The billing address, the email address and the phone number can be anything, and digital products or local pickup may not need a shipping address at all.

Rules on billing country, email and phone

To stop checkouts by billing country, email domain or phone prefix, the rule has to run inside the checkout. Regionly Pro does this with a Shopify checkout validation: when the shipping or billing country, the email domain or the phone prefix matches your rules, the buyer sees your message and cannot complete the checkout. It also covers Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.

• Allow only the shipping countries you serve, or block specific ones.
• Block whole email domains (for example *@example.com) or exact addresses.
• Block phone prefixes in international format (for example +234).
• Try rules in Log only first: checkouts are not blocked, and matching orders are listed for review.

Limits

If the check itself fails, checkout continues, so an error on our side does not stop a good order. Shopify does not tell apps about blocked checkout attempts, so you will not see a count of them. Rules only match what the buyer enters; they do not detect where the buyer really is.

Can I stop international orders on Shopify?

Yes, by shipping only to your own country in Settings > Shipping and delivery. To also block by billing country, email domain or phone prefix, you need a checkout rule such as Regionly Pro.

Do checkout rules apply to express checkouts?

Regionly's do (Pro): they run as a Shopify checkout validation, which also covers Shop Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay.