How can I sell digital products internationally without shipping rates?

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Hey All,
My store has digital products only that I’d like to sell world wide. However I can’t seem to add markets like, Australia, where I HAVE to add a shipping rate. But since I can’t add shipping rates to a digital products…

What is the way to sell digital internationally?

Thank you,

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Hi, @Gedeve

This is a great question, thanks for posting!

Essentially, you will create the Shipping Zone, but don’t add rates to it. This will allow your customers to checkout from all of the regions you intend to sell to.

I hope that helps! In the meantime, as your new to Shopify, make sure to check out Shopify Learn which has loads of free courses on all things ecommerce!

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HI Gedeve,

One more thing that you should take into considerations when selling digital products. They are taxable in some countries. If you intend to sell B2C to the EU or the UK you have to collect and pay VAT to the respective tax authorities using EU VAT special scheme (Non-Union OSS ) or VAT UK registration for sales in the UK .

we can help you set-up the store properly and register you for the VAT schemes .

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Is there a place to find what countries tax for digital products? Any type or resources to read up on this. Thanks!

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HI HC,

Unfortunately , it is not that easy :). It depends on the product type. I can give only general description here. Audio books and E-books in most EU countries are levied at the reduced rate (with some exceptions : Slovakia, Denmark, Ireland, Hungary - in these countries downloadable books are considered as electronic services and apply standard rates to the them). All software and music come at standard rate.

There are more rules for transport, vehicle hire and other services but these services are not usually sold online cross border. There are also exceptions for educational services in some EU countries.

In UK e-books are 0 rated and audio books are 20 percent. All other usual downloadable services are standard rated.

VAT rates can be found at EU pages: VAT rules and rates: standard, special & reduced rates - Your Europe (europa.eu).