Issue: Shopify Skips Quebec Tax for In-Person Clients from Outside the Province

Accounting & Taxes
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Topic summary

A service provider in Montreal faces a tax collection issue: Shopify calculates taxes based on customers’ billing addresses rather than the service location. This causes problems when out-of-province clients attend in-person classes in Quebec, as Quebec taxes (GST + QST) aren’t applied.

Attempted solutions that failed:

  • Including taxes in product price (makes offerings appear more expensive)
  • Creating custom tax rules (causes double taxation for local clients)

Suggested workarounds:

  • Implement a manual tax override specifically for the class product to always apply Quebec taxes
  • Use third-party apps like Quaderno for location-based tax management
  • Set tax-inclusive pricing with clear product descriptions

Current status: The original poster is seeking step-by-step guidance on implementing either the manual tax override or custom tax logic solution, as they haven’t configured these features before. The discussion remains open with implementation details pending.

Summarized with AI on October 28. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

I offer an in-person service based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Occasionally, clients from outside the province travel here to attend my classes. However, Shopify only collects taxes based on the customer’s billing address — meaning it sometimes doesn’t apply Quebec taxes if the client is from another province or country.

I’ve tried two workarounds (which unfortunately haven’t helped):
a) Including taxes in the product price — but this makes the product seem more expensive before checkout.
b) Creating a custom tax rule — but this results in local clients being charged taxes twice.

Is there a way to ensure Quebec taxes are always charged for my in-person services, regardless of the client’s address?

2 Likes
2

Shopify calculates taxes based on the customer’s billing/shipping address, which doesn’t work well for in-person services. Since your classes take place in Quebec, you should technically be charging GST + QST to everyone who attends regardless of where they’re from. One workaround is to create a manual tax override for the class product that always applies Quebec taxes. You could also consider using an app like Quaderno to better manage tax rules based on service location. Alternatively, set the tax-inclusive price and clarify it in your product description to avoid confusion. I’ve had a similar issue and using custom tax logic solved it!

3

Thanks for the detailed reply — super helpful!
Quick follow-up: Could you walk me through how to either (1) create that manual tax override in Shopify for the class product to always apply Quebec taxes, or (2) set it up using custom tax logic like you mentioned? I’d really appreciate a step-by-step or even just what to click into — I’ve never done that before.
Thanks again!