Legalities

[rockyboyy]

Hey Shopify community,

I would like to know what can I do if I want to sell products in the US or UK but from my own country which is obviously not these two? Should I form an LLC on these countries or should I just register a business/LLC here in my country and as long as I can receive payments through card payment I'm good to go?

Any advice is highly appreciated. I wanted to know this because I don't want to market here in my country because of supplier issues and purchasing power of people because of the currency difference when I import my COGS from China or other international suppliers.

[Lana]

Hello @rockyboyy!

When it comes to selling internationally, it is up to you to decide where you want to ship your products. 

To use Shopify, you do not necessarily have to have a registered business as it is possible to operate as a Soler trader, and you should be able to sell both to the UK and USA if you wish - however you may only be able to sell in one currency, so you might want to decide which market is your preferred. 

For example, if you choose USD as your main store currency, UK customers will still be able to checkout, but they will be subject to the conversion fees involved when converting GBP to USD.

What country are you based in yourself? Depending on where you're selling from, you may need to check with local tax and business experts to understand what your obligations are - and when choosing a payment provider they may ask for certain documents such as proof of physical/business presence in the country that you operate from.

Depending on where you're based yourself, you will be able to choose a payment provider from our list of available payment gateways here, just select your region and the ones supported in your country will appear. 

Have a look and see if there is a gateway there that you would like to choose and I would be happy to see how I can advise you with the setup. Most likely, you will need to create an account with that gateway on their website first, and then go through the steps in our help doc here to enable it on your store.

I would love to hear a bit more about your business and the products that you're going to sell - let me know and I will see what else I can advise here.

[rockyboyy]

Thank you for this detailed answer Lana!

So, basically I need to sign up to a payment gateway for me to receive card payments right? and they will require business documents from me, that is why I need to register a business or an LLC, correct?

Im from the Philippines and wanting to sell in the United states, is my problem solved by just HAVING A PAYMENT GATEWAY THAT ACCEPTS CARD PAYMENT even if I'm here in my country? Or do I need to open an LLC or something in the United states itself for me to accept international payments?

Hope this makes sense. Thank you!

[Lana]

To address your first question regarding an needing to register a company to be able to use payments - no.

You can double check with the gateway of your choice, but in most cases what they ask for is just proof of residency in the country that you operate from, as well as some identification documents. 

Since you're based in the Philippines, you can have a look at the list of gateways available to you in your country here.

Once you have chosen from that list, just visit the website of the gateway to create your account, then follow these steps here to set it up in Shopify. 

For selling in general, I would recommend you do some research with a local tax expert just for the purpose of understanding your own tax obligations.

As for selling and shipping internationally, you can do so as a sole trader without a company, it will just be a matter of making your store accessible to those countries by making sure they have shipping rates as described here.  

Once all of the above is set up, somebody browsing from the USA should be able to check out on your store no problem!