Shopify Charging PST on Delivery Fees in BC (Should Be GST Only)

Accounting & Taxes
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Topic summary

A British Columbia merchant reports that Shopify began incorrectly applying PST (Provincial Sales Tax) to delivery fees around December 2024.

The Issue:

  • BC law requires delivery fees to be charged GST only, not PST
  • Shopify previously calculated this correctly but recently changed behavior
  • This forces merchants to overcharge customers and creates tax compliance problems

Support Response:

  • Multiple contacts with Shopify support have been unhelpful
  • Responses only address exempting products/customers from PST
  • The core issue—that delivery fees shouldn’t have PST at all—remains unaddressed

Current Status:

  • The poster believes this is a platform-level tax logic error requiring Shopify’s intervention
  • Seeking confirmation from other BC merchants experiencing the same problem
  • No acknowledgment yet from Shopify that this is a known or widespread issue
Summarized with AI on October 25. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hello,

Has anyone else in British Columbia noticed Shopify is incorrectly charging PST on delivery fees?

By law, delivery fees should only have GST applied, not PST. This has always been the case in BC, and Shopify used to calculate it correctly. Since around December 2024, however, I’ve noticed Shopify now adds PST automatically to delivery charges.

I’ve been in contact with support multiple times, but the responses I’ve received so far only cover how to exempt products or customers from PST. This isn’t the issue. Delivery fees are not a product and should not have PST applied in the first place.

This seems like a change in Shopify’s tax logic that needs to be corrected at the platform level. Otherwise, BC merchants are being forced to overcharge customers and miscollect provincial taxes, which is a serious compliance problem.

Is anyone else experiencing this? Has Shopify acknowledged it as a wider issue?

— Shaylynn