Shopify Markets vs expansion stores: how to sell in the UK, EU, US, Australia and New Zealand from Shopify (2026)

Short answer: start with one store and Shopify Markets. As of September 2026, every plan from Basic up can create regional markets with local currencies, per-market product availability and prices, translated subfolders or country domains, and duty and tax settings, and Shopify generates the hreflang tags. Expansion stores need Shopify Plus. Use them only when a region really needs its own catalog, stock, apps or team, because you'll then keep products and inventory in sync yourself. Below: what each option does per Shopify's documentation, a decision table, and a setup checklist for the UK, the EU, the US, Australia and New Zealand.

We checked all platform details on help.shopify.com, shopify.com and shopify.dev on September 25, 2026. The tax points summarize what Shopify and the tax authorities publish. They aren't tax advice.

What Shopify Markets does in one store

• Markets. A market is a group of customers, defined by countries or regions, B2B company locations, retail locations or sales channels. You can create as many country or region markets as you like. Only customers in an active market can check out, and a country needs shipping rates before you can activate it.
• Currencies. Each market can show its own currency, with dynamic or manual exchange rates and optional rounding. To take payment in several currencies you need Shopify Payments or Adyen. With any other processor, customers pay in your store currency. Dynamic rates add a currency conversion fee, which depends on where your store is based, to the price the customer sees (check the current rate on Shopify's currency help page, linked in the sources). With manual rates, the fee comes out of your payout instead.
• Catalogs. A catalog controls which products a market sees and at what price: a percentage adjustment, plus fixed prices for individual products that override it.
• Languages. Basic, Grow and Advanced stores can sell in up to 20 languages, Plus stores in up to 30. The Translate & Adapt app machine-translates two languages at most. You can also adapt content for markets that share a language, such as UK spelling or legal text.
• Domains. Each market can use a subfolder (yourstore.com/en-gb), a subdomain or its own country domain (yourstore.co.uk).
• Duties and taxes. For each market, you choose whether prices include tax and whether duties are collected at checkout.

The "new" Markets. Shopify rebuilt Markets in 2025. In the 2025-04 Admin API, a backup region replaced the "primary market", a web presence can belong to several markets, and contextualPricing only counts active markets. Submarkets, which inherit a parent market's settings, followed in May 2025. If a custom app or integration was written against the older API, have it checked.

What your Shopify plan changes

Creating regional markets is free on every plan. Shopify's Markets plan table shows where the plans differ:

On Basic and Grow, every market shares the same theme customization. If your UK homepage needs a different hero or shipping banner from your German one, you need Advanced. For everything else Plus adds, see Is Shopify Plus worth it in 2026?

Expansion stores: what Plus gives you

According to Shopify's Help Center and Plus pricing page:

• Count and cost. A main store and nine expansion stores are included in the Plus fee. Additional stores cost extra, either a monthly fee per store or a revenue share (see the Shopify Plus pricing page for the current terms). Staging stores don't count toward the limit.
• Same brand only. Expansion stores must share the main brand's name and branding and sell the same types of goods. Another brand needs its own Plus contract.
• Nothing syncs. Settings, products, collections and inventory aren't shared between stores.
• Costs multiply. Apps are billed per store, and you can't share a paid theme license across stores.
• Billing currency. Only stores billed in USD or INR can be added to a Plus agreement.

So every product launch, price change and stock movement has to reach every store. Budget for a sync app or an integration from the start, not after the first oversell. Plan store-to-store and ERP syncs before launch. If an ERP is your source of truth for products and stock, see our guides to Shopify NetSuite integration and Shopify Business Central integration.

Separate legal entities aren't a reason to split stores on their own, because one Plus store can assign business entities to different markets. Expansion stores make sense when a region needs its own assortment, warehouse, apps, payment setup or local team.

Managed Markets: a merchant of record, for a fee

Managed Markets was called Markets Pro until June 2024. Global-e becomes the merchant of record and handles tax registration, filing and remittance, duties and local payment methods. You don't need tax registrations in the countries you sell to.

• Who can use it: businesses based in the continental US and certain stores in Canada and the UK, on the Basic plan or higher, with Shopify Payments and a store currency that matches the home country. UK stores with fulfillment locations in both Great Britain and Northern Ireland aren't eligible.
• Fees: a per-transaction fee (lower on Plus), plus Shopify Payments processing and a currency conversion fee, with no monthly fee. Check the current rates on Shopify's international pricing page. By default, Shopify raises international prices to cover the fee.
• Not supported: subscriptions, B2B orders, manual bundles and zero-value orders.

It suits a US or UK brand that wants to test many countries without registering for VAT or GST in each one. If your business is based in Germany, Australia or New Zealand, it isn't available.

Decision table: one store, expansion stores or separate brands

Our rule of thumb: if the difference between regions is "prices, currency and language", use Markets. If it's "a different business in that country", consider expansion stores.

Subfolders, subdomains or country domains

Shopify recommends subfolders for most stores. They share the primary domain's authority, need no extra domain and are the easiest to manage. Subdomains need DNS setup for each one. Country domains give the strongest local signal, but you register and manage each one separately. Google's multi-regional guidance lists the same trade-offs.

Shopify's docs say it handles these automatically:

• Hreflang tags on every page for each market with its own domain, subdomain or subfolder, plus an x-default for your primary domain. If a theme or app adds its own tags, turn off Automatic hreflang tags in Online Store > Preferences to avoid duplicates.
• Self-referencing canonicals and sitemaps that include every market URL with hreflang annotations.
• No redirects for known crawlers. Shoppers are redirected by IP address and browser language. Crawlers get the URL they asked for.

Google requires each version to list itself and every other version, with an ISO 639-1 language code and an optional region (en-GB, de-DE). A country code on its own isn't valid. Google also advises against automatically redirecting users between language versions, so keep a visible country and language selector.

After launch, check that the live tags actually point to each other. This Node.js 18+ script (check-hreflang.mjs) reports missing return links:

// node check-hreflang.mjs: use one page per market
const urls = ["https://example.com/", "https://example.com/en-gb/", "https://example.com/de-de/"];
const norm = (u) => u.replace(/\/$/, "");
async function alternates(url) {
  const res = await fetch(url, { redirect: "manual" });
  if (res.status >= 300 && res.status < 400) console.warn(`${url} redirected to ${res.headers.get("location")}`);
  const html = await res.text();
  const map = {};
  for (const tag of html.match(/<link[^>]+rel="alternate"[^>]*>/gi) || []) {
    const lang = tag.match(/hreflang="([^"]+)"/i);
    const href = tag.match(/href="([^"]+)"/i);
    if (lang && href) map[lang[1].toLowerCase()] = norm(href[1]);
  }
  return map;
}
const found = {};
for (const url of urls) found[norm(url)] = await alternates(url);
for (const [url, map] of Object.entries(found)) {
  const listed = Object.values(map);
  if (!listed.includes(url)) console.log(`MISSING SELF: ${url}`);
  for (const other of listed) {
    if (found[other] && !Object.values(found[other]).includes(url)) console.log(`NO RETURN LINK: ${other} -> ${url}`);
  }
}

If you deactivate a market, change its subfolder or move from another platform, the old URLs need 301 redirects or they return 404 errors. Our WooCommerce to Shopify migration guide covers how to build and test a redirect map in Shopify.

Taxes and duties: what Shopify does and what's on you

Shopify only collects tax where you've entered a registration, and whether to register is your decision. The platform handles the rest:

• Tax display. Dynamic tax display includes tax in prices where shoppers expect it (Shopify names the EU, the UK and Australia) and adds it at checkout in the US and Canada.
• Duties at checkout. You need HS codes and a country of origin on products, a carrier that supports DDP labels if you buy labels in Shopify, and no Shopify Fulfillment Network. Shopify charges a per-order fee for collecting duties, which is lower with Shopify Payments. Check the current rate on the duties and import taxes help page.
• Low-value goods taxes. Shopify applies VAT on orders of £135 or less to the UK and €150 or less to the EU if you're registered. It also lists low-value regimes for Australia and New Zealand.
• US de minimis. Since August 29, 2025, duties and import taxes apply to all US imports, whatever their value.

Setup checklist for each market

United Kingdom

1. Create a single-country UK market. GBP is set automatically.
2. Use /en-gb or a .co.uk domain, and adapt spelling and legal text if your base store is US English.
3. Show prices including VAT.
4. Shipping from outside the UK: for consignments of £135 or less, GOV.UK says the seller charges VAT at the point of sale and must register. Enter the registration in Shopify. Above £135, normal import VAT and customs rules apply.

Germany and the EU

1. Create a Europe market, then a Germany submarket if Germany needs its own language, prices or content. In a multi-country market, local currencies are on by default.
2. Add German, machine-translate it, and have a native speaker review product pages, checkout and policies. Serve it on /de-de or a .de domain. Show prices including VAT.
3. Selling from inside the EU: the Union OSS scheme covers intra-EU distance sales above the €10,000 EU-wide threshold. Selling from outside the EU: IOSS lets you collect VAT at checkout on consignments of €150 or less.
4. From July 1, 2026 until July 1, 2028, the EU charges a temporary €3 customs duty per item on consignments of up to €150, where an item is each tariff classification in the parcel. Check how your duty settings and carrier handle it.
5. Basic Tax is only available in the EU to stores that set up EU tax collection before May 13, 2026. Newer setups use Shopify Tax or manual settings.
6. The EU Price Indication Directive requires you to show the lowest price from the previous 30 days whenever you announce a price reduction.

United States

1. Create a US market in USD (on /en-us if the US isn't your primary market), with sales tax added at checkout.
2. Enter the state registrations you hold. Shopify doesn't collect tax where no registration is entered.
3. Shipping from abroad: with no de minimis, add HS codes and country of origin, and consider collecting duties at checkout so parcels aren't held until the customer pays.

Australia

1. Create an Australia market in AUD on /en-au, with prices including tax.
2. The ATO treats physical goods worth A$1,000 or less as low value imported goods, and registered overseas sellers charge GST at the point of sale. Check the ATO's registration threshold, then enter your registration in Shopify.

New Zealand

1. Create a New Zealand market in NZD on /en-nz.
2. Inland Revenue defines low value goods as NZ$1,000 or less, excluding GST, and GST is 15%. Check whether you must register, then enter the registration in Shopify.

In every market: place a test order through a VPN from that country. Check the currency, whether tax is included, duties, shipping, language, hreflang tags and the confirmation email.

Red flags in international setups

• Expansion stores kept in sync by hand with CSV exports.
• Hreflang tags from an old app or theme on top of Shopify's automatic ones.
• Dynamic exchange rates without the conversion fee in your margin plan.
• A market deactivated without redirects, so its subfolder URLs return 404 errors.
• A second brand added as an "expansion store", which Shopify's rules don't allow.

If you sell the same catalog in a few countries, you can set up Markets in the admin without a developer. You'll need help for expansion store syncs, per-market checkout extensions or custom apps that read market data.

Want help with international Shopify?

We set up Markets, build syncs between expansion stores and ERPs, and review custom apps that depend on market data. Tell us about your stores and target countries and we'll recommend the simplest setup that works, including when one store is enough.

Sources

• Shopify Help Center: Requirements and considerations for using markets
• Shopify Help Center: Setting up currencies for markets
• Shopify Help Center: Assigning domains and languages to markets
• Shopify Help Center: International SEO for markets
• Shopify Help Center: Localization and translation
• Shopify Help Center: Expansion stores
• Shopify: Shopify Plus pricing
• Shopify: International pricing and Managed Markets fees
• Shopify Help Center: Requirements and considerations for using Managed Markets
• Shopify Help Center: Duties and import taxes
• Google Search Central: Managing multi-regional and multilingual sites
• Google Search Central: Tell Google about localized versions of your page