Managing Export Controls on Shopify for B2B International Sales

If you're selling B2B internationally on Shopify, there's an important distinction you need to understand before going live: Shopify handles some international trade restrictions automatically, but export compliance for your specific products is largely your responsibility as the merchant.

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Getting this wrong isn't a minor issue. Shipping regulated products to restricted destinations, end users on denied party lists, or prohibited end uses can carry serious legal consequences. This post explains exactly where Shopify's controls end and where yours begin, and how to use Shopify's native tools to build a defensible operating setup.

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What Shopify Handles Automatically

Shopify applies platform-level controls across all stores regardless of plan. These cover sanctions compliance at the platform level.

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Sanctions watchlist screening: Shopify screens users against applicable sanctions watchlists and prohibits doing business with individuals or entities on those lists, or in geographies where doing so violates applicable law.

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Unsupported countries blocking: Shopify prevents storefront access from unsupported countries and regions, blocks the creation of account, shipping, or billing addresses for those regions, and refuses orders shipping to or from them. This includes OFAC-sanctioned countries and other legally restricted territories.

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IP-based access controls: Shopify uses IP detection to block access from unsupported regions at the storefront level.

These are baseline protections that run underneath every Shopify store. They are not configurable by you as a merchant, because they reflect legal obligations the platform has regardless of what you sell.

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What Is Your Responsibility

Beyond Shopify's platform-level sanctions controls, product-specific export compliance is your obligation. This includes:

• Export licenses: If your products require an export license under EAR (Export Administration Regulations), ITAR (International Traffic in Arms Regulations), or equivalent regimes in your country, obtaining and managing those licenses is your process, not Shopify's.
• Restricted end uses and end users: Even for products shipped to non-sanctioned countries, certain end uses (military, nuclear, chemical/biological weapons) and end users (denied parties not captured by OFAC) may be restricted. Shopify does not screen for these.
• Destination-specific product restrictions: Some products require licenses for specific destinations that are not under full sanctions. Shopify won't block these shipments automatically.
• Deemed export rules: Sharing controlled technical data or technology with foreign nationals (including in your own facility) may constitute an export. This is entirely outside Shopify's scope.

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For regulated industries, particularly aerospace components, industrial equipment, advanced electronics, or anything with dual-use potential, consult your export compliance counsel or a licensed freight forwarder experienced in controlled goods.

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Using Shopify Markets to Define Where You Sell

With Shopify B2B on Shopify Plus, Markets gives you the infrastructure to define exactly which countries and regions you intend to sell into. This is your primary tool for structuring geographic selling permissions within Shopify.

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How to approach it:

1. In your Shopify admin, go to Settings > Markets
2. Create markets (or submarkets) that map to where you're cleared to sell. For example: "EU B2B," "UK B2B," "APAC Approved Distributors," "North America"
3. For each market, configure the countries included, currency, language, and domain if applicable
4. Set market-specific shipping and delivery rates so you only present shipping methods for destinations where you intend to fulfill

This gives you a deliberate structure rather than a default "sell everywhere" stance. If you are not authorized to sell a particular product line into a region, you can configure that restriction at the market and catalog level rather than relying on post-order manual review.

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Using B2B Catalogs to Restrict Products by Customer Group and Market

Catalogs in Shopify B2B (Shopify Plus) let you control which products specific companies can see and purchase. For export control purposes, this is how you restrict regulated SKUs from reaching customer groups or markets where you don't have authorization to sell them.

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Practical approach:

• Create separate catalogs for each customer segment or market region (for example, one catalog for EU distributors and a separate one for APAC distributors)
• Include only the products you're authorized to sell into each destination on that catalog
• Products not included in a catalog are not visible or purchasable by that company
• Use company and company location assignments to connect each account to the correct catalog

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This is not a substitute for export compliance screening, but it does add a structural layer that limits which products each customer group can self-serve purchase.

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One behavior to be aware of: If a company location is assigned to more than one catalog and both catalogs include the same product, Shopify shows the lowest price. When designing catalog structures for compliance purposes, keep catalog overlap intentional and document your logic.

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For a closer look at catalog and pricing configuration, see Customer-Specific Pricing on Shopify for B2B.

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Routing International B2B Orders Through Review Before Fulfillment

For markets or customer accounts that carry higher export compliance risk, the safest pattern is to require every order to pass through a review step before fulfillment proceeds. Shopify supports this natively in the B2B company settings.

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Company-level draft order submission:

1. Go to Customers > Companies in your Shopify admin
2. Open the company record for accounts in markets requiring review
3. Under Order submission, select Submit all orders as drafts for review

When set this way, orders from that company are always created as draft orders first. Your team reviews them before sending an invoice or releasing to fulfillment. This gives you the window to:

• Verify the product being ordered is licensed for the destination
• Confirm the buyer or their end customer isn't on a restricted party list
• Check that end-use documentation (if required) has been submitted
• Escalate to compliance before any money is collected or product ships

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For more on structuring the review workflow itself, see How to Set Up B2B Order Review Workflows in Shopify.

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Handling International B2B Orders as Draft Orders

When you're the merchant of record for international B2B orders (required when B2B and Shopify Managed Markets overlap), draft orders give you the control to manage export documentation, duties, and terms before committing to an order.

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The draft order workflow supports:

• Adding internal notes for compliance check status before sending an invoice
• Tagging orders by destination country, duty arrangement (DDP/DAP), and compliance clearance status
• Locking product pricing to your quoted rate while compliance review completes
• Requiring a review step before any payment link is sent to the buyer

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Tags are particularly useful here. Using consistent order tags like export-review-pending, export-cleared, country-DE, or requires-license-check keeps your operations team and your compliance process aligned, and makes it possible to filter and report on orders at each stage.

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For a full walkthrough of the draft order setup for international B2B, see How to Handle International B2B Orders as Draft Orders in Shopify.

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Checkout-Level Compliance Fields

For certain markets, you can collect compliance-relevant information directly at checkout. Shopify provides native collection for several country-required fields (CPF/CNPJ for Brazil, RFC for Mexico, PCCC for South Korea, Codice Fiscale for Italy). These appear automatically for the relevant shipping destination.

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For fields not covered natively, Checkout UI Extensions (available on Shopify Plus) let you add custom fields. Scenarios relevant to export compliance include:

• Importer of record confirmation: A checkbox where the buyer acknowledges they accept importer responsibilities
• End-use declarations: A required statement about intended product use
• Import license numbers: Required credentials for regulated product categories in specific destinations

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These fields can be made conditional based on shipping country, so they only appear when you're shipping into a destination where the documentation is required.

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For a detailed walkthrough of market-specific checkout configuration, see Global B2B Commerce: Customize Checkout for Different Manufacturing Markets.

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Automating Compliance Flags with Shopify Flow and n8n

Manual review for every international order isn't sustainable at volume. Automation helps surface the right orders for human review without creating bottlenecks on orders that don't require it.

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Shopify Flow (available on Shopify Plus) can:

• Tag all international B2B orders automatically when placed by a company account shipping to a defined set of countries
• Pause fulfillment and notify your compliance team when an order matches a high-risk country or product category
• Auto-route orders from certain markets to draft status before any fulfillment action is taken

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n8n handles more complex logic and works well when you need to integrate Shopify with your ERP or a compliance screening tool:

• Trigger a denied party screening API check when a new B2B order comes in
• Flag orders where the shipping destination matches a list of countries requiring additional review
• Push order data to your ERP with a compliance-hold status until cleared
• Send structured alerts to your compliance team with all relevant order details

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If you're not yet on Shopify Plus, n8n is particularly valuable because it provides automation capabilities similar to Shopify Flow without the plan requirement.

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What Shopify Will Not Do

To be direct about the platform's limits:

• Shopify will not verify whether your specific product requires an export license for a given destination
• Shopify will not screen your buyers against the BIS Entity List, State Department Debarred Parties List, or other export-specific denied party databases beyond OFAC sanctions
• Shopify will not check whether a buyer's stated end use is permitted under your product's Export Control Classification Number (ECCN)
• Shopify will not generate export documentation (EEI filings, export licenses, commercial invoices with the correct ECCN)

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These are operational and legal responsibilities that sit with your compliance team, your licensed freight forwarder, or both. Shopify's tools help you structure your store and route orders through review, but they are not a compliance system.

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Practical Setup Summary

If you're configuring Shopify for B2B international sales with export control considerations:

1. Create explicit markets for each region where you're authorized to sell, rather than defaulting to unrestricted global access
2. Assign catalogs by customer group and market to limit regulated SKU availability to accounts and destinations where you're cleared
3. Enable draft order submission for company accounts in higher-risk markets so every order passes review before fulfillment
4. Use order tags to track compliance status through your review workflow
5. Extend checkout with compliance fields for end-use declarations or importer confirmations in specific markets (Shopify Plus)
6. Automate flagging with Shopify Flow or n8n so high-risk orders surface for human review without slowing down low-risk ones
7. Know Shopify's hard stops: orders and storefront access involving OFAC-sanctioned or Shopify-unsupported countries are blocked at the platform level regardless of your configuration

The goal is a Shopify setup where your permitted markets, customer groups, and product catalogs are all aligned, and where orders that need compliance review reliably land in a review queue rather than proceeding to fulfillment unexamined.

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