--- title: Shopify UK VAT now follows your fulfilment location description: Shopify UK VAT on Great Britain orders over £135 now depends on the fulfilment location. Who it affects and how to keep charging VAT at checkout. slug: shopify-uk-vat-fulfilment-location date: 2026-10-28 updated: 2026-10-28 service: support faqs: - question: Why is Shopify not charging VAT on some UK orders? answer: If a Great Britain order is over £135 before tax and shipping, and order routing assigns it to a location outside the UK, Shopify treats it as an import. No VAT is charged at checkout, even if your store also has a UK location. - question: How do I make Shopify charge VAT on UK orders over £135? answer: Shopify gives two options. Make sure order routing assigns these orders to an active UK location with stock, or collect duties and import taxes at checkout. Shopify's help centre says a tax override can't be used for this. - question: Does the Shopify UK VAT change affect Northern Ireland orders? answer: No. Shopify's changelog says Northern Ireland orders aren't affected. Orders of £135 or less and orders placed before the change aren't affected either. --- Plenty of Shopify stores hold stock in more than one country. A Belgian brand with a UK 3PL. A UK brand with a warehouse in the Netherlands. For them, a quiet change to how Shopify calculates UK VAT is worth checking this week. Since the 23rd of October 2026, Shopify calculates VAT on Great Britain orders from the fulfilment location your order routing picks. If an order is over £135 before tax and shipping, and it's routed to a location outside the UK, Shopify treats it as an import. No VAT is charged at checkout. That applies even when your store has a UK location. ## What did Shopify change? The [changelog entry](https://changelog.shopify.com/posts/more-accurate-uk-vat-based-on-fulfillment-location) sets out the rule. VAT on orders shipping to Great Britain now depends on the location assigned to each order. Shopify says this works the same way as its tax calculation for orders shipping to the United States. Three kinds of order are not affected. - Orders of £135 or less. - Orders shipping to Northern Ireland. - Orders placed before the change. Shopify's [UK tax help page](https://help.shopify.com/manual/taxes/uk/uk-tax-migrate#charge-vat-over-threshold) adds detail that matters in practice. The address under Settings, then General, doesn't count as a location for tax. Only an active location under Settings, then Locations, does. ## Which stores does it affect? The stores to check are the ones that sell into Great Britain from more than one place. That usually looks like one of these. - A UK brand that also keeps stock in an EU warehouse or 3PL. - An EU brand that sells to UK shoppers and keeps some stock in the UK. - A store with a UK business address but all its stock held abroad. - A store whose routing rules favour the location with the most stock, wherever it is. If every Great Britain order already ships from a UK location, you're unlikely to see a difference. It's still worth a quick test, because routing rules often change around peak. Blended B2B and DTC stores should look closely. Trade orders are often well over £135. If a wholesale order to a GB customer is routed to an EU warehouse, VAT won't be added at checkout. Our guide to [selling from the UK into the EU on Shopify](/insights/selling-uk-to-eu-on-shopify) covers the other direction. ## What happens to an order routed abroad? Shopify treats it as an import into Great Britain. The shopper pays no VAT at checkout. Unless you collect duties and import taxes at checkout, the tax is left to the import process, and the customer can face a charge when the parcel arrives. The help page lists a few details that are easy to miss. - Changing an order's fulfilment location after it's created doesn't recalculate VAT. - Orders split across several fulfilment locations can be treated differently. - You can't use a tax override to charge UK VAT on orders over £135. - Draft orders may not have a fulfilment location when tax is calculated, so the VAT result can differ. The draft order point matters for wholesale teams. Many trade orders start as draft orders raised by a sales rep. Test that path separately from the online checkout. ## How do you keep charging VAT at checkout? Shopify gives two options. Pick the one that matches how you actually ship. Option one is to fulfil Great Britain orders from a UK location. The help page sets out the steps. 1. In the Shopify admin, go to Settings, then Locations. 2. Add a location with a complete UK address and set it to Active. 3. Add stock at that location for the products you sell to Great Britain. 4. Review your order routing rules so Great Britain orders are assigned there. Option two is to collect duties and import taxes at checkout. This suits stores that really do ship GB orders from outside the UK. Shopify's help centre links to its duties and import taxes guide for the setup. Your products will need the right customs data in place first, and our note on [Shopify HS codes by country](/insights/shopify-hs-codes-by-country) explains why that data matters. ## What should you test before Black Friday? Black Friday falls on the 27th of November 2026. Tax and routing settings are exactly the things we'd freeze in peak week, so make any change now. Our [Black Friday code freeze checklist](/insights/black-friday-shopify-code-freeze) explains the thinking. Then run these checks while trading is normal. 1. Place a real test order through checkout to a Great Britain address, over £135, for a product stocked only outside the UK. 2. Repeat it for a product stocked in the UK, and confirm VAT shows as you expect. 3. Try a cart that could split across two locations, and check the result. 4. If your team raises draft orders for trade customers, test one over £135. 5. Check your order routing rules haven't been changed for peak stock moves. Shopify's help page recommends testing through checkout rather than draft orders, because draft orders can calculate tax differently. If a result surprises you, talk to your accountant before you change how you charge VAT. We set up the store, but your accountant owns the tax position. ## Where Parallel Commerce helps We look after live Shopify stores every month, including locations, order routing and checkout settings. Our [Shopify support packages](/services/support) start at £400 a month with Maintain, which includes two hours of fixes each month. Optimise, at £1,000 a month, ships two improvements a month with a performance report. If you sell into Great Britain from more than one country, [book a call](/start#book). We'll review your locations and routing rules, run the test orders with you and make sure VAT lands where it should before peak.