How to restrict international orders while keeping site visibility?

Payments + Shipping & Fulfilment

Topic summary

Goal: prevent non‑US customers from completing orders while keeping the store visible internationally.

Key clarifications: Shopify checkout eligibility is controlled by Shipping Zones. Limiting shipping to the United States forces a US shipping address, but the billing address can differ and won’t block checkout.

Recommended approaches:

  • Configure Shipping and Delivery to only include a US Shipping Zone. This ensures orders can only be shipped to US addresses.
  • Use Shopify’s Fraud Filter app to block orders from customers located outside the US, even if they enter a US shipping address.

Alternative app solution: Cart Lock app can enforce a rule based on shipping country. Steps provided: add a rule, set condition “Shipping country,” choose “Block if not found,” select “United States of America,” and add an error message.

Outcome/status: No final decision noted; multiple options presented (Shipping Zones + Fraud Filter or Cart Lock rules). An image was shared as a setup example but isn’t essential to the guidance.

Summarized with AI on December 18. AI used: gpt-5.
1

Hello Team,

  1. The billing address is listed as United States, but the order was placed from Venezuela

Is there a way to avoid this, because I have customers who will order from international country and put a US courier address. How may I avoid them from purchasing outside of the US but still being able to see the site.

2

Hey @digital3 ,

Thank you for reaching out to the Community! When setting up Shipping and Delivery, customers will only be able to check out if products are available to ship in their country or region.

Due to this, you will want to ensure the current Shipping Zone is set to only ship to the United States. This will prompt customers at check out, to enter a United States shipping address in order to successfully continue into the remaining steps in the check out process.

It’s important to note that a customers billing address can differ from their shipping address and will allow for a successful check out as long as the shipping address is located within the United States.

If you’d like to prevent customers located in a different country other than the United States from placing an order, you can look into adding our Fraud Filter App to achieve this. This will not impact international customers from viewing and/or browsing the shop as the site is not limited to only the United States, rather the check out is.

Please let me know if you have any other questions!

3

Yes it is possible to restrict international orders while keeping a site by using the Cart Lock https://apps.shopify.com/cart-lock app easily. Here is how you can do it:

  1. Open the app and click on the “Add a new rule” button.
  2. Click “Add a new condition” and select the “Shipping country” then select “Block if not found” and choose “United States of America”.
  3. In the “Error message” field, add an appropriate message which will be displayed in the checkout page.
  4. Save the rule.

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Now your customers cannot order to ship outside of the United States of America.