Shopify orders requiring a shipping phone number for FedEx

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Issue: FedEx shipments now require customer phone numbers to print shipping labels, even though the Shopify store settings have “Shipping address phone number” set to “Don’t include.” This requirement appeared suddenly within the last 2 days without any changes made by the merchant.

Root Cause: FedEx (and sometimes DHL) have recently started mandating phone numbers for international and some domestic shipments. Shopify’s checkout still allows orders without phone numbers unless explicitly set to “Required,” creating a bottleneck at the label printing stage.

Suggested Solution:

  • Navigate to Settings > Checkout > Customer information
  • Change Shipping address phone number to Required
  • This ensures future orders capture phone numbers upfront, eliminating manual entry when printing labels

Status: The discussion remains open with one proposed workaround. The merchant expressed frustration with unexpected Shopify changes.

Summarized with AI on October 26. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

In the last 2 days when we go to print orders for FedEx delivery it is requiring a phone number for the customer.
If we don’t put a phone number in then we can’t print the order.
We do not ask our customers for phone numbers. This is something that has been done by Shopify.
I have gone in trying to find a solution but from what I’ve found the program should not be asking for a phone number because that option has not been checked. (see below)
These are not changes that we have made.

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There have been a couple more changes by Shopify and I wish they would just leave things alone.

1 Like
2

Hey @karen1pdfk ,

Even though you’ve selected “Don’t include” for the shipping phone number, carriers like FedEx (and sometimes DHL) have recently started requiring a phone number for international or even some domestic labels. Unfortunately, Shopify still allows checkout without it unless it’s marked as “Required” which causes this bottleneck when buying the label.

Here’s what you can do for now:

  • Go to Settings > Checkout > Customer information, and temporarily switch Shipping address phone number to Required.

  • This way, any new orders will include the number upfront, so you won’t have to hunt it down later when printing labels.

It’s not ideal, but it saves time in the long run.

Also, if you want to keep your checkout clean while still improving delivery success, some merchants use tools like ParcelPanel to automate tracking updates and reduce failed deliveries, especially helpful when phone numbers are spotty.

Hope this helps smooth things out a bit!

And if it solves the issue, feel free to mark it as a solution so others can find it too :slightly_smiling_face: